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Fritz Ottenheimer [Ottenheimer]: I don't get tired of talking about
myself. This must be horrible for you [laughs].
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Strasser: [laughs] It's not. Go on.
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Ottenheimer: But then I joined this, what you might call a class.
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Ottenheimer: Club in folk singing, which was at the Y. And.
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Ottenheimer: Oh, I would say there were 60 or 80 people there every week
in certain days of the week, in certain evenings, and they come just to
sing and some of them guitars and their banjos. And there was a gentleman
there from the Pittsburgh Symphony that used to bring his cello and strum
it like a bass fiddle or play it like a cello. And that's-- the name of the
game was folk music. And oh, it was one of the most enjoyable experiences.
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Ottenheimer: And I used to bring my harmonica and. Play along or sing
along. Not both.
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Ottenheimer: But it was a great experience. And I guess I got to meet a
number of people, incidentally, but the main purpose was to.
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Ottenheimer: Have a good time. And at the same. That managed to move the
number of girls who have the same interest and.
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Ottenheimer: Started dating them and so forth, little by little.
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Ottenheimer: That involved in social life.
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Ottenheimer: So again, you're interested in Jewish organizations, The Y.
And I did find those enjoyable acitvities. Occasionally I'd go to play
badminton at the Y. I guess I must have joined it for a year or two as a
member, although didn't have to join for the folk singing. The folk singing
I stayed with that for quite some time.
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Ottenheimer: But in general. Strasser: So you never really had anything to
do with The Irene Kaufmann settlement then? You missed out with the Y [??]?
Ottenheimer: No-- I think I saw her play there once and that's about the
extent of it.
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Ottenheimer: Our children have some. I think our children went to Hebrew
Institute.
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Ottenheimer: One time in the summer, of course. Or some sort of-- I
forgot.
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Ottenheimer: And our son went to summer camp.
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Ottenheimer: Two years, I think. And. First off the Zoo in Oakland. Which
is run by I think-- um.
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Strasser: Well, that's about-- Ottenheimer: That's about the extent of it.
When you were growing up, what type of jobs did most Jews have that you
need?
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Ottenheimer: Okay. First 14 years of my life, I grew up in Germany. Most
of the people I knew in Constance were either small businessmen. Oh, my
best friend's.
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Ottenheimer: Father was a tailor. Another one, I guess there was another
tailor in town.
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Ottenheimer: Either they owned stores or they worked in somebody else's
store. And there were a couple of professional people, uh two attorneys.
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Ottenheimer: A couple of doctors.
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Ottenheimer: But not close to them, just causual.
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Ottenheimer: Uh, some people-- this one family that we're distantly
related to had wholesale business in leather. That's about it.
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Strasser: And then New York?
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Ottenheimer: New York, all the others we associated were with either
manual labor, such as my father.
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Ottenheimer: Or factory workers. Again, essentially manual labor,
repetative job of some sort. Garment, toys.
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Ottenheimer: And I suppose I knew a few people who were.
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Ottenheimer: In grocery stores or candy stores.
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Ottenheimer: Then some of my high school buddies.
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Ottenheimer: Well, one's father was a doctor and the one was a traveling
salesman.
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Ottenheimer: I guess mercantile was the main occupation.
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Ottenheimer: In my early youth. And then.
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Ottenheimer: And after we came over, most of the German Jewish families
that I knew were menial labor of some sort and most of the others.
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Ottenheimer: Neighbors or earlier refugees families were again mercantile.
Strasser: What do you think of intermarriage?
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Ottenheimer: That's a tender subject right now because my daughter just
got married to a Catholic boy. Um, I have mixed feelings about it.
Basically, what I was trying to tell my kids most.
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Ottenheimer: Of their lives.
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Ottenheimer: In finding someone to marry you should try to find someone
who has as much in common with you as possible. Because marriage is an
adjustment and of course, the more differences you have between the two of
you, the more adjustment it is. So strictly from a realistic or um
psychological point of view.
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Ottenheimer: It good to know someone.
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Ottenheimer: However. I also recognize that to a great extent, my life is
non-sectarian. My activities are not primarily Jewish oriented, and
certainly my children were not raised in a primarily Jewish atmosphere. And
therefore this kind of argument just doesn't hold much water under these
conditions. I do have a certain amount of.
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Ottenheimer: I don't know what-- uh injured feeling.
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Ottenheimer: Uh, partly on basis of my previous experiences, but I suppose
I have not picked up the kind of paranoic feeling that the older
generations have. Uh the whole world is against us and we must stick
together and avoid.
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Ottenheimer: Contamination of our Jewish values by the outside world.
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Ottenheimer: I certainly did not eject nearly as violently to our daughter
marrying a Catholic boy as, I suppose, either my parents.
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Ottenheimer: Or my wife's parents felt about it [??]. Uh, but.
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Ottenheimer: It is.
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Ottenheimer: An unfortunate situation that there is.
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Ottenheimer: A tremendous extent of marriage.
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Ottenheimer: Last number I heard was something like one out of two
marriages of a Jewish person is with a member of another religion. So, uh,
in terms of, uh the Jewish, uh, destiny or the future of the Jewish people.
Assimilation is, of course, a delusion. The survival of the Jewish people,
if it is necessary, would require that we avoid intermarriage. Survival of
the Jewish people probably.
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Ottenheimer: Would be engendered most by.
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Ottenheimer: Having been subjected to persecution and discrimination. I
certainly would not wish for this.
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Ottenheimer: So I have my selfish reasons for wanting to have a happy
life. Even if it does mean that there's a possibility that uh the Jewish
community weakened from this.
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Ottenheimer: And strictly on a personal basis, my feeling has always
been.
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Ottenheimer: That when a girl gets married, she should marry the best
man.
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Ottenheimer: Available that she.
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Ottenheimer: Gets along with best and that she can have the best chance of
spending the rest of their life and happiness with.
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Ottenheimer: If he is Jewish.
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Ottenheimer: Then so much the better to have that much more in common. And
have the Jewish religion too. Whatever satisfaction I can get from this.
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Ottenheimer: If he is gentile.
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Ottenheimer: There are some problems, partly due to the difference in
background. More so due to the reaction.
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Ottenheimer: Of society and all of the families.
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Ottenheimer: We.
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Ottenheimer: Tried to discourage my daughter from getting married out of
her religion. But once the decision was made and it was obvious that they
were not rushing into something blindly, she my daughter had known this boy
for three years before they got married, and it was not just a temporary
infatuation. We decided that, well, that's what their decision is and we're
going to go along with.
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Ottenheimer: It and we're going to make it our best possible marriage.
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Ottenheimer: To the extent that we're involved with. And uh we had a very
interesting wedding ceremony.
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Ottenheimer: At Heinz Chapel with a priest and a.
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Ottenheimer: Rabbi called co-officiating. I think it was very meaningful.
It was not hypocritical. He's keeping his religion and she's keeping her
religion. And this is exactly what.
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Ottenheimer: Being [??]. With the intermarriage. We've had more
intermarriages in our families before.
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Ottenheimer: My wife's two brothers, both married Catholic girls. My
sister married a Jewish man and divorced. Of course, this may not be a fair
comparison, but again, I think that I come back to what I mentioned several
times before in this interview that in my mind. Jewishness is important,
but it's not the only criterion. Whether it's in social.
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Ottenheimer: Life or in marriage or something else.
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Ottenheimer: The I suppose trite statement is I'd rather marry a good
Gentile than a bad Jew. So of course there are lots of good Jews too,
that.
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Ottenheimer: You can marry, so why not look for a good Jew?
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Strasser: Have your views on Zionism changed?
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Ottenheimer: I uh.
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Ottenheimer: Well, of course, events have changed Zionism itself.
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Ottenheimer: So the question is, have my views changed?
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Ottenheimer: I don't think so.
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Ottenheimer: Except what we're doing.
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Ottenheimer: Is so much different than what we used to do. As I mentioned
before, I always was attracted to a ideology were Arabs and Jews could work
together. It may or may not a realistic approach. We will never know
because we can't make it retroactive. But my feeling before the formation
of Israel was, yes, we need a national state for Jews. But let's get the
Arabs involved in it, because after all, they're there right now, and we've
got to be able to get along with.
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Ottenheimer: Them after we have our country. It has to be their country
too.
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Ottenheimer: Now I am not particularly adamant about it now. The only
thing I can say now is it's regrettable that they didn't follow that course
of action, at least to some extent, or to a greater extent than that they
did. Uh, I also occasionally find myself thinking, Well, why don't they
give a little on this particular.
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Ottenheimer: There's probably-- make more of an effort to meet the Arabs
halfway.
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Ottenheimer: This is more appropriate in the days when before this last
war, when we seem to be riding on.
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Ottenheimer: Top of the heap and there didn't seem to be any need to
compromise and that time too adds up. Now is the time to compromise, now is
the time to try to make an accommodation. Ready to make some sort of effort
to take care of the refugees.
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Ottenheimer: So.
Ottenheimer: So this-- I respect.
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Ottenheimer: The Government of Israel. It's been a tremendous thing for
the Jewish people. They had a tremendously difficult job. And it's amazing
that they have survived.
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Ottenheimer: The only reservation I.
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Ottenheimer: Have is this old point of-- it's unfortunate that they can't
just be a little more cooperative.
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Ottenheimer: If I-- make more.
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Ottenheimer: Deals with the Arabs instead of [??].
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Ottenheimer: I think there is a. Very strong effort now to reach some kind
of accommodation.
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Ottenheimer: But uh I think they left it way too long.
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Ottenheimer: Now it's being forced on them.
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Ottenheimer: Before they could have gone back. Um.
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Strasser: Back to the neighborhood situation. Could you say what
neighborhoods and when you lived in Pittsburgh.
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Ottenheimer: Well, in my single days I lived in Squirrel Hill. First on
Lightning street, then 6528.
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Ottenheimer: Darlington[ph] road. I had an apartment there.
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Ottenheimer: With a friend of mine-- boyfriend. Strasser: [Laughs] Do you
have dates for that? Ottenheimer: Well, lived there until I got married--
now when did I start living there? It seems like a long time, but I was
only in Pittsburgh for two years before I got married, so I guess I lived
one year at Whiteman's Creek and about one year at Darlington road. My
first temptation was to say over 3 or 4 years or so. So, uh. Um. Then we--
as I said, it was just bouncing back and forth. We had an apartment on
Beacon Street at the time we got married. We rented the apartment and just
barely started.
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Ottenheimer: To move in when I got transferred out to Little Rock.
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Ottenheimer: And then between Little Rock and Augusta, we just spent the
month or so at my wife's parents house and Squirrel Hill, Beechwood
Boulevard. Then when we came back from Augusta, we bought a house in
Swissvale. Lived there for five years.
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Strasser: That was 1950?
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Ottenheimer: It's easier to work backwards. We've lived here since 1960?
So we lived in Swissvale from 1955 to 1960, and uh that was 7111 Church
Street in Swissvale. Then we moved from there to our present residence,
which is 244 Sharon Drive.
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Strasser: Okay.
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Strasser: Can you tell me where your mother's buried?
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Ottenheimer: Well, a cemetery in New Jersey.
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Strasser: Jewish cemetery? Ottenheimer: Yes. For sometime.
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Ottenheimer: And her father.
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Ottenheimer: Is buried right next to her. Yeah.
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Ottenheimer: Next to each other. Strasser: And if the father [??]
Ottenheimer: Yes. Strasser: You and your wife's parents?
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Ottenheimer: Um, my. Well, as I say, my wife's. Oh, wait a minute. My
wife's parents are buried in a Jewish cemetery in.
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Ottenheimer: No, they don't.
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Ottenheimer: Well, it's an Oakland congregation.
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Ottenheimer: That they used to belong to and I don't remember the name of
the congregation.
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Ottenheimer: I can get it for you later.
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Ottenheimer: See. I told you my wife should be here.
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Strasser: [Laughs] Do you, uh. Have you purchased a plot for yourselves or
have you made any arrangements? Ottenheimer: No. Strasser: When the time
comes, would you make it for your synagogue?
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Ottenheimer: Well, we're giving some thought right now to.
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Ottenheimer: Possibility of buying a plot from Temple Sinai.
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Strasser: And is there such a thing as a family club?
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Ottenheimer: No. You get together spontaneously, occasionally.
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Strasser: That's all my questions. Is there anything else you'd like to
mention?
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Ottenheimer: No. I can't think of anything else.
