WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:22.000 Anna Buchwald: Okay. She told me, you know who your neighbors are and you said no. Should. This grounds that a new house was built at the time when we bought the home in 1953. We could have bought it for thousand dollars. We are not business people. 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:32.000 Buchwald: He didn't know what to do with it. My husband said, All we shall do is pay taxes. On that ground. We didn't realize what we couldn't do. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:42.000 Buchwald: And when I was operated on my kidney, that was 1954. The poor man came knocking. Asking us for 00:00:42.000 --> 00:01:09.000 Buchwald: a little more money than anybody. But he will give us first choice if we want it. And we had other words at that time we didn't know. Will I be able to work or not? I have to stay on three months. So. We didn't buy it. And someday the real estate man is one of us. Was one of the person. 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:16.000 Buchwald: His name is in settled communities. So I think this is German born. 00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:39.000 Buchwald: He bought them lots and made for them or house anyway. So and our combination this is a double duplex was a retired teacher. By of Chandler High School of singer woman and she never had left the house. 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:52.000 Buchwald: When we had prepared the house and so on in the last year when we decided we should move in, she didn't know. She came over to my husband and said, "What do you say Mr. Buchwald?" 00:01:52.000 --> 00:02:05.000 Buchwald: We are getting. Well, my husband says, I tell you what, if we're going to move in now 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:39.000 Buchwald: okay, fine. Then I can stay too. So that was it. And since then, houses are being sold and on the top. But Swiss Chalet, when you drive farther, you see, this is Martin Madsen, a lawyer that owns the house. Now that house belongs to. And the man died from a heart attack. He was connected with the car. I think he was one of the golden boys. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:03:14.000 Buchwald: Just, you know, some messenger. Something like that. What position was not that up. So major medicine was the right person. She is. Of course, I promised it and she bought the house and stayed in the neighbourhood and so are other people that are interested to me, that kind of activity. We don't do anything actually, now. It's not that we are especially close with any of them, except that our next door neighbor. 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:21.000 Buchwald: Who is the director of the news and he's very, very sick. 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:53.000 Buchwald: We are very close kissing and of course, but they have different groups. They are very, very intellectual minded people and are very active with all kinds of friends of white and and Negro no matter what. And they are as open minded as we are and we just don't have a chance to see them anymore because recently. And we. 00:03:53.000 --> 00:04:14.000 Buchwald: In Europe we had visited, but after we came back, we had only some come over outside and I wanted him to come over. And he was that. Equal to. And so they can't even come over for something lije that. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:47.000 Buchwald: But that is one of the reasons that they cannot socialize too much. But this is a mistake. And we are, I'm very sure, very influential in that regard. And maybe some of the friends that we have, they all live mostly in Squirrel Hill. I hesitate to come up here. Mm hm. But it's nothing to worry about. You always felt more secure here than you are. Well. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 Interviewer: Tell me. When did you join the Friendship Club? 00:04:50.000 --> 00:05:50.000 Buchwald: Actually joined. We must have been right away. But in the beginning we only went when there was a bigger affair. Like events. And then at that time, the it was in the first year, actually, we met one man who was the buyer in that five year job that I was working as a dressmaker. And, oh, we embraced, you know, we were never really well acquainted. But you know how it is when you somehow somebody from home. So we became very close friends and they shared the house on their street with us for about five years. They had a little girl two years, I think he was younger than ours. And they were sometimes very chummy and sometimes they just were. So because, of course, differences with girls and boys and things like that. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:55.000 Interviewer: Do you feel members of the Friendship Club are upper class? 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Buchwald: Upper class? No, I would say they are middle class. Some are maybe a bit more financially set better than others, but in general they are middle class. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:19.000 Interviewer: Do you feel membership in the Friendship Club is affected your position in the community and the Jewish community? 00:06:19.000 --> 00:07:20.000 Buchwald: In the Jewish community? It took quite a time until the Friendship Club really was acknowledged for what it is they are praising. It now is none. I think in other cities, similar organizations really fell down and didn't get together anymore. But I know in Los Angeles they did keep it up to-- I don't know if they still do, but we became quite active with the Friendship Club. Later on, when we were invited by one of our friends who is now the president of the club the second time because Mr. Marcus. Mr. Marcus. And we were invited and there were people that became later also very good friends with us. But I don't think we have ever met because they are now living in the South Hills going to he died and he was the youngest actually. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 Buchwald: And it was very unfortunate for the mission operations. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:08:02.000 Buchwald: And so he got acquainted with us and learned how much interest Frank, my husband, has in Pittsburgh and how much we knew about it that was not known about it to other members of the Friendship Club. And we have a monthly paper. So he was the editor of the paper at the time and invited my husband to write each month a little article What is in Pittsburgh? And that's how Frank became very influential in the educational program at the club. 00:08:02.000 --> 00:09:48.000 Buchwald: For years. He was active as the program manager was over ten years, the forum manager, and became also president. As a president. He was very good, but. Others were as well, you know. And we were also pulling others in to the club that were very much under on the outside. And we had, by instance, the 25th Club anniversary or so. It was in the William Penn Hotel downtown. And those friends I go for and we influenced them later on. Then it was such a good affair that they became members and he became the cashier for the club for years. He had only last year he had to go. He wants to be with younger people, practically. He is the nicest thing, younger than my husband. So they tried to get active in the movies and have something to do with people he works with and so on. But as it is, we cannot complain of any setback in our work due to our religion. Frank is a member of a record club that is playing records once a month in a group of 8 to 10 men, only classical music. And that was started from engineers in the shop that made their own radios and things like that. 00:09:48.000 --> 00:09:56.000 Interviewer: Can you tell me what you remember about the old Irene Kaufmann settlement? Buchwald: Pardon. Interviewer: Can you tell me what you remember about. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:10.000 Buchwald: Well, the plays they had and the activities for the children. So parties and handcraft and our son went to. 00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:19.000 Interviewer: Do you remember the red light district in the hill? The founding of Montefiore Hospital. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:37.000 Buchwald: I only knew there was an old Montefiore because that girlfriend that we were so close with had scarlet fever. And she came here and she was hospitalized in that old Montefiore. So I knew that there was an old but we only got acquainted with the new one. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Interviewer: When you were growing up, what type of jobs did most Jews have that you know? As a child. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:11:47.000 Buchwald: As a child. Well, somewhere. Well, the father of my close neighborhood girlfriend was chimney cleaner. And, well, we never looked down on any of those. Of course not. And. Salesmen. And, well, we knew the physicians and dentists. My brother in law was a dentist and the other brother in law was a wholesale importer of fruits and vegetables from Bulgaria or Italy, you know, but a very educated man. But the business was there, you know, but he was of Yugoslav origin, came from _____[??]. And so that was his field because he had the language and all that. 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:48.000 Interviewer: So it was quite a mixed variety. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:12:32.000 Buchwald: In Austria. You know, that was all the neighborhood girls' father was a tailor and. It was no really bad-- I remember anti-Semitism in one schoolgirl acquaintance, really. We were friendly only through that girl that was like next door. And I noticed when we were in her home that her brothers were behaving somewhat different and then others. And so he must have been a German. 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:35.000 Interviewer: What are your opinions on intermarriage? 00:12:35.000 --> 00:13:45.000 Buchwald: Our son is married to a non-Jewish girl. And of course, I must say we had never objected to whatever friends he had. And when he became 15, the Irene Kaufmann Center did not have accepted children over 14 for summer camps. We became acquainted with the Unitarian Church at the time when he was 15, about due to the Chicago book discussion, which they had Sunday early morning. And we became there very friendly with people who had also a boy at age 15 when we discussed those things. She told us about the camp of the Quakers for Teenage Children and we became interested in that group. And he went to that camp twice. 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.000 Interviewer: What camp was that? 00:13:47.000 --> 00:15:50.000 Buchwald: Oh, it was intercultural Quaker camp for teenagers. I think I kept some of the literature because on the one picture that they made for advertising was our son also. And that became the first group where our son learned to discuss freely and have freedom. And other than in ____[??], of course, you know, they could stay up and do what they pleased. And not only that, I show you later the picture that he painted when he was in high school on the Fitzpatrick with that name. Then to his knowledge and knowledge, things in town, kitchen also of the institute. But he loved that was Negroes and other religions mixed and so on. He did not care for the Jewish girls that were interested in discussing how much the boy spent dating with them. And so he was very, very not against, but he dated some Jewish girls as well as others, you know, and particularly one we remember, and we liked her very much. She was the most intelligent and good speaker when we spoke to him. Oh, yes. He was interested in her. Jewish girl. But she was already quite young, so I didn't doubt that. But it was not that he was against Jewish girls, but it happened so. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Buchwald: And so we knew we will eventually have a problem if we are too much. But we never did really put our foot on something that we had to decide for himself. He, for instance, after the first year in the School of Architecture, came home and said, Now he would like to go into psychology. And he has an epiphany that he wants to go to one of those therapy schools that, you know, that work and study program that they provide. And so my husband brought him to Lovejoy to make a choice. We were, of course, quite concerned because we knew we would lose that one year and a lot of good stuff. And from that Quaker group, they had a discussion group. They came together once a week. They were all times in different homes. And there were Jewish as well as non-Jewish kids. And they stayed up until the wee hours discussing. Sometimes my husband joined in a era in our house or was like, my son likes to come in and be them a little. So that was one grown up social worker heading that group was Mr. John Horvitz, a very, very fine Jewish man. He had been a porter, purple markings to Gotcha's [??]. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:19:02.000 Buchwald: And we became very close friends who visited here. I think he even came on once he left when he was already living here. And you have to live too much. You. Come. Just the door. You have a car with pushbutton controls. And he incidentally visited at that time we were living in. And we told him, Johnny, what can you do? Maybe medicine. Well, at any rate, our son decided on a larger architecture to practice the second best in the United States. This. That's the-- Finished school of architecture and became very, very fond of the professor, Hans Pratt. He died and had been very fond of. I said he was of famous background and he was influential in as much as he told him when he was finished with architecture. He should take history of art in addition. And then he will be an old man, because there was at that time, I think there are two in the whole of the United States that actually are art historians and not just historians teaching history. So he was turned down by the Army after he finished Carnegie Tech because of a stomach acids. And so he came home and said, now I gained two years of my life. 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:24.000 Buchwald: I wish to go to one of the study. [unintelligible] The professor ask so what. Professor discussed, ask him [unintelligible] 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:31.000 Buchwald: At that point as well as. Later on. He got older and younger. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Buchwald: Fun [unintelligible] to discuss what is what is what. After two years being in Vienna, he came back and went to all kind of schools, that is, universities, talking to the heads of the departments, what to do. They should come back here and study for the atmosphere here. And they all sent him back. That is there. So that's the place to finish. So he made a speech to. When I was in France wearing this thing. He was finished his PhD and worked in Milan as Architect. And professor. Due to some recommendation of one of his boyfriends in Vienna, who also had his Ph.D. in history of art and was teaching in Boston, I think I don't remember now what the school's name is. It's a college near Harvard. I cannot say which. And they liked it so well, he was married already. We became acquainted because they came here first before they went. Um. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Buchwald: So he became teacher at-- professor at Harvard. At remained on the job for years. And he decided he would lose his skill in architecture and lose his touch altogether if he doesn't go back to architecture. Knowing that in Vienna he couldn't get into professorship at the time because they asked for Austrian citizenship. Being a university professor, he felt that in architecture he could do it and he had the desire to do it. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:23:47.000 Buchwald: Well, six years college education in Vienna after he finished here, was very influential. Not only that, he was born there, but after all, it became his second world. He always believed in as he traveled extensively while he was studying in Vienna. I'm capturing. He became a Byzantinist. Byzantine art is very, very one sided. And I always thought he will end up as a museum director or something. History of art would give eventually, perhaps. But no, Byzantine art is. And he has written some books. He was even in the art bulletin. Articles were printed. That was no money. It's just the pride and being a professor to, what you say, to have something written in the field which you are. And you know. So he has written about Byzantine churches and and is now working on a book as Bahamut for a Byzantine church that is excavated in Turkey. So he had been in Turkey quite often now recently he has been last fall in September, he had to go there to see what more was excavated and to really give it a complete view of what he was doing. So but to work in Vienna, he was. You didn't stay in. He became the chief designer of Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart. Up seeing it finished. Actually, that's a picture of the model. Okay. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:56.000 Interviewer: Um. Can you say what if you've bought a cemetery plot for yourself? Buchwald: Yes, we did. 00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:55.000 Buchwald: And that was very unfortunate because we would like to get rid of it. We have friends that are mixed couple. He is Jewish and she isn't. And they apparently have given our name to some people who sold them a cemetery plot and a mixed cemetery up in--I know that area above East Hills Shopping Center. It's well, we looked at it and we said, well, it's a nice view for people who is there something to look at? So the man that was given our name came here and he was apparently a good salesperson and he bought that lot paying for each month so little, you know, really was not right. And then they changed the place. Actually, it's still in the same vicinity, but apparently something was being built and they sold some of the parts. 00:24:55.000 --> 00:26:06.000 Buchwald: I don't know. We still have that lot in the camp at River, which we would rather not because that is the Last Supper, you know, or what not. And we don't particularly care. Since then, we became more active in the Friendship Club and really it's not our desire to be buried. But what does it matter? Actually, I think since our son isn't living in Pittsburgh, I don't think anybody would be really desire to go see. One sad thing is I must mention that, you know, the relatives that brought us here, the uncle had a sister here, an assistant leader for the orphanage. And less daunting in Cleveland was the younger sister of my husband's mother. She was 93 when she died. They all, they pretty much up in age when she died. And the aunt here had been living in Homestead. You know what Homestead is nowadays. 00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:32.000 Buchwald: And it may have been much, much worse at the time when we came, the smog was just unbelievable. I don't think you can imagine when you wake up in the morning and clean your nose and you just feel absolutely black. And that is all. Yeah. But at that time when we said, Oh, that smell, that said, you know, as long as the mills around here working 00:26:32.000 --> 00:27:33.000 Buchwald: and people, I think that's what it was. But that aunt had, uh, she had two daughters and a son, which we liked very, very much. The two daughters were teachers and not that we looked down upon, but they sort of either did not feel comfortable enough with us. They were all friendly at the time and we started out, but as more we grew into our cultural desire to have classical music and have a different background and they do. The one teacher that died since she retired, she was living in the house and directly she shared them. After the other people moved, she shared the house with us. So, so friendly with them, you know. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:28:33.000 Buchwald: But from her son, she was, you know, it was not the desire of her to go farther in her education at all. She had her masters, she had her teacher's license. And that was awesome. It was a great teacher. And that's what she remained. And she never had any desire to do things other than she was used to. And they moved out of town. She, incidentally, when she she was a youngster, well, not a young but a senior girl. And she stayed in the same house with us. And at the time when we moved here, she married a German that is similar to my husband. She always said if she ever marries, it must be some person of that caliber. And she did marry a German that was pretty much. 00:28:33.000 --> 00:30:03.000 Buchwald: of the same interests who was interested in music and things like that. They, of course had never any children, but we less and less associated with them. For instance, I just want to give you an example. We had Jewish young neighbors in the neighborhood when they moved on their street, and those neighbors were very good friends with us and we were more of the age of their cousin. And when we someday dropped in at the cousin, that neighbor was in her house, but she never invited us other than for a big party. And the children had Hanukkah or there was a birthday or something like that, but never as a friend to friend invitation, you know. So I think, of course, men are not so touchy in those things. I felt somehow left out, you know? Okay, well, how about that can be done. The cousin who was in the war in Italy in the Second World War now. The aunt did not have the strength to help that brother in Vienna that had to go through four years concentration camp. 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:33.000 Buchwald: She's just neglected to do something for that. And when the war went on and her son didn't come back yet, she was apparently desperate and her daughter give herself, working her as daughter. But she doesn't think her son will be killed because she didn't have sisters. 00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:35.000 Interviewer: Ooh. 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:37.000 Buchwald: [unintelligible] 00:30:37.000 --> 00:30:43.000 Interviewer: That hurts. Buchwald: She's very, very normal lady from Homestead. 00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:55.000 Buchwald: Was a member of Rotary. And a very sweet person. Her son came back. 00:30:55.000 --> 00:31:08.000 Buchwald: And live at his wedding, for instance. It was the first year when we were here and we liked his wife always very much, and they know. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:44.000 Buchwald: That a sister that had been staying with us has afterwards, not beforehand lifted her brother. If she had not invited us to her little room in their house. They had never invited us. Then we had our citizenship party. I still invited his boss and invited a couple of friends that were very close to him, and we invited him with his wife and many. 00:31:44.000 --> 00:31:46.000 Buchwald: And that his house when. 00:31:46.000 --> 00:32:46.000 Buchwald: His sister passed away. And that brother in law came from Europe, from out of town and stayed with them while the during the time of sorrow and with that day, we always welcome. I don't know. I can't judge. He's a shoe salesman. But I don't think he needs to feel inferior in our company. We are so leisure, you know, It's absolutely nothing to it. I don't know. It's just impossible to find out. And we kiss each other when we meet them. They are very close to his sister. They are very good to each other. You know, it's one sister is still living. And that brother. 00:32:46.000 --> 00:33:46.000 Buchwald: I can't figure it.
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