Esther Lee
October 28, 2016
87, male
occupation: retired
setting: history taking practice with a shoah survivor
Can you tell us about your social life?
my wife died last month
i have problems with constipation
that's my only health complaint
i like to write
i used to walk at least five miles a day until my knees started hurting
i use my stick now
every day
it used to be seldom but now
everyday
today i didn’t walk here
the bus from home to here takes some time and i didn't want to be
late so i took a taxi
i'm a writer
Can you tell us about before you came to Israel?
i came when i was nineteen
i wrote a book about it - a heavy book but
they didn’t want it
i tell you i was so good at languages
and i am still good at languages
french
german
english
hebrew
yiddish
i was the only one in my class who spoke all these and the teachers didn’t like us but
i was so good at german
i was the only jew that my teacher liked
i like languages and i like to write
i am a writer
and when i write
i forget
about all the troubles in my head
What do you like to write about?
love stories and things
that i see and notice and what is on the news
my book is called Between
Two Homelands
how can there be two homelands, you say
a homeland signifies one place to return, one space
to be safe in
how can there be two of something so special
like two of being born?
———
you don't tell us about the time before you came to your homeland
about the animal clawing in your stomach
the blackness of their eyes or
the call of death
the stories inside
instead, it’s writing and your books
the constipation, the new walking stick
you motion again with your fingers the thickness
of the book that never got published