Tag #152317 - Interview #78174 (dora nisman)

I found a job at the Queen Blouse, the most popular shop in Chernovtsy. The owner spoke German. She was Jewish and came from Chernovtsy, but she found it more aristocratic to speak German. There were signs in German in all stores like the names of goods, information about working hours or warnings - just the usual stuff that can be seen in ordinary stores. Children were taught German. They had a better command of German than Yiddish.

I had a testing period at the shop. A very good hat specialist couldn't find a hat that she had made. And who was the suspect? Me, the newcomer, of course! But I hadn't seen the hat. In the long run it was found. I pretended that nothing had happened. I followed the rules that my father taught me - don't steal, lie or envy anything in life - and these rules proved to be helpful. The shop owner put me through another test. She called me to her home on a weekend and told me to make a pearl necklace. She probably counted the number of pearls and wanted to make sure of my honesty. These people considered all those that came from Bessarabia Russians, although we were as much Jewish as they were. They had a higher standard of living and level of education and were better off, but we were very honest and decent. I passed my tests successfully and deserved their good opinion. I was off work on Sundays. I worked on Saturdays regardless of the Jewish tradition to take a rest on this day. Even on Sundays, when the owner of the shop had customers from smaller towns that came to buy clothes, she asked me to work and paid me extra for my work. I spoke Yiddish to customers, but I picked up German soon.