Monday, May 10, 2021

"My Great Grandfather Was Attacked By Some Kids" in Canada: Bieganski Interview # 19

 

Source

My mother told me that before the war a Jewish man with a beard might get harassed in the street. When I asked for confirmation of that recently … she said that her grandfather was once attacked by some kids. He came to Canada from Poland in 1911. He was an orthodox Jew and wore a beard. He collected scrap metal and drove a wagon through every neighborhood and into what was then the suburbs or even countryside.
 
She did tell me that non-Jewish employers sometimes didn't want to hire you because you were Jewish (in the Toronto of the 1940s).Two versions of what she said came to mind … 1. They would tell you to find work with your own people. 2. That they said "Your own people don't even want to hire you." I suppose she was in her 40s in the 1960s when she told me that.
 
Informant was a male from Toronto whose maternal grandparents were Jews from Poland and whose paternal grandparents were Jews from Hungary


 

THE BACKGROUND on these interviews, that is, when they were conducted, who the informants were, and why I post them, see here.

 

"To Chew Someone Down" Bieganski Interview #1

"Poles are Inherently Comic Janitors" Bieganski Interview # 2

"My Father Began to Conceal His Jewish Origins" Bieganski Interview # 3

They Worked Like Moles Their Whole Lives Bieganski Interview # 4

"She Never, and I Mean Never, Threw Anything Away" Bieganski Interview # 5

"They Always Kept One Token Jew" Bieganski Interview # 6

"White Privilege? I Laugh" Bieganski Interview # 7

"Stalin Died and I Was Set Free" #8

"The Jew is Clever. The Pole is Obnoxious, Loud, and Stupid." #9

"My Grandfather Let Anastasia Escape" #10

"I No Longer Practice Anything Except Reciting Yizkor and Lighting Yahrzeit Candles for My Parents"# 11

"I Have Always Been Afraid to Get Close to Any 'Real' Jews"# 12

Shiksa # 13

"Germans. I don't Like Hearing the Language" #14

"Those Shoes Kick My People to Death" #15

"Why Get Your Hopes Up?" # 16

"Goyim Sell Their Children for a Bottle of Whiskey" # 17

"My Father Was Beaten Up By Right-Wing Polish Extremists" # 18

"My Great-Grandfather Was Attacked by Some Kids" # 19


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Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
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