{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/xs5j96129m/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Benya, Mascha (3 of 3)"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","metadata":[],"provider":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Lowell Milken Center for Music of American Jewish Experience"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/115/original/Boxed_Milken_Center_logo.png?1628711583","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/011/small/Benya3.jpg?1621866469","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - L2017_Mascha_Benya_Shoot3.mp4"]},"duration":1923.136,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/112/011/small/Benya3.jpg?1621866469","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-milken.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/112/011/original/L2017_Mascha_Benya_Shoot3.mp4?1619863872","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":1923.136,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Mascha Benya - Interview 3 [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Mascha, you came from Eastern Europe, not, not Berlin, originally, right?  You came…\n\nBENYA:  No.  I was born in Lithuania.\n\nLEVIN:  Where?  In Vilna?\n\nBENYA:  No.  In a little shtetl on the East Prussian border.  And that town had a different name in every language.  In German, it was Verbalin; in Lithuanian, Virbalis; in Yiddish, Vershba — in Russian, Vershbalova — and in Yiddish, some people called it Verbalov, some Vershbalov.  But it was about four or five kilometers from the East Prussian border.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=17.0,53.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But strictly Lithuanian?\n\nBENYA:  Lithuanian.  Suwalki and Gubernia.\n\nLEVIN:  So why…\n\nBENYA:  But Suwalki belonged to Poland.\n\nLEVIN:  Always?\n\nBENYA:  Well, during that period…\n\nLEVIN:  After 1918.\n\nBENYA:  …that Lithuania was independent.\n\nLEVIN:  You know, but your Yiddish is certainly not a Litvishe Yiddish.  It’s not Litvak Yiddish, is it?\n\nBENYA:  What’s, what then?  What is it, then?  Galitzianish?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=53.0,78.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  No.\n\nBENYA:  No, it certainly is.  But we had a different dialect, actually.\n\nLEVIN:  Ah.\n\nBENYA:  It was a little influenced by the Lithuanian language.  There were some diphthongs, like in Lithuanian and in East Prussian.\n\nLEVIN:  But you say azoi or azai?\n\nBENYA:  We said azeiu.\n\nLEVIN:  And…\n\nBENYA:  That’s the Baltic…\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nBENYA:  …the towns…\n\nLEVIN:  German more — it’s Baltic, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  …the Baltic, the people from, from ?, from ?.  And our town and a few close, towns close by had this pronunciation.  But when I came here, I corrected it. Yes, we had — we didn’t say ingele, we said ingeli and vedeli.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=78.0,126.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So you’ve changed…\n\nBENYA:  And so you see, vedeli.\n\nLEVIN:  So your pronunciation altered when you came to the United States, then?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  I, I was very aware.  I learned, I was very anxious to learn that, the, to, to speak Yiddish properly.  And I am…\n\nSEROTA:  When you went to school…\n\nBENYA:  Yes?\n\nSEROTA:  As a child…\n\nBENYA:  Yes?\n\nSEROTA:  …what kind of Yiddish was spoken in school?\n\nBENYA:  In school, Hebrew.  Sephardit.\n\nLEVIN:  Now, wait a minute.  Wait, wait.  This is, you went to…\n\nBENYA:  My school in…\n\nLEVIN:  …you went to a Zionist school, or to…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=126.0,149.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  Tarbut, Tarbut Zionist school in — I mean, it was a Tarbut Gymnasia, which is equal to a junior college in, in this country.  And all subjects were taught in modern Hebrew.  All subjects.\n\nLEVIN:  But you said Sephardi?\n\nBENYA:  Sephardit, a hundred percent. It was a very modern Hebrew…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=149.0,173.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But I thought — you see that the Bialik pronunciation, which was Ashkenazi…\n\nBENYA:  No.  Well we, we went, we read Bialik in Sephardit.\n\nLEVIN:  And who sponsored these schools?\n\nBENYA:  Who sponsored it?  My father and other fathers.  They were, they founded the school.  It was the vaad hamechonen, the founding committee. And not, they did, and they paid, they kept the school.  Sometimes, they didn’t have enough money to pay the tuition, and the, the secretary or something would come in and call out the children like this, and tell them to leave — they couldn’t pay. But they were very anxious to get an education.  That was known, for the…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=173.0,219.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So your parents — I mean, this was, not every child went to this kind of school?  This…\n\nBENYA:  Well…\n\nLEVIN:  Your parents were Zionists, active Zionists?\n\nBENYA:  Absolutely.  Very ardent Zionists, yes. And most of the Jewish children went to the school.  There were some parents that — demanded that there should be a period of praying.  And they hired a special rebbe.  Before the school started, the children came an hour earlier.  And this special, special rebbe was doing the — meaning the Shacharit and so forth — for them. But the school was a secular school, but a very Zionist school.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=219.0,267.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And musically, you were, you must have started very young.\n\nBENYA:  Well, we, we had a special teacher for music, who was a very talented man.  He may not have had a very formal education, but he had a good ear, and he was a very talented….  He was, he, he used to draw and, and, and write poetry.  He was a very artistic person.  His daughter played the piano. But I took piano lessons, but we didn’t have a piano at the, in the house.  I had to go to the saloon to practice, next door.  And the, and the, and the people in the saloon didn’t like to hear the scales, and they demanded I should play a waltz.  You know, a polka or something. So that’s why, till this day, my piano playing is very shvokh.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=267.0,318.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Anyone else in your family musical?\n\nBENYA:  Everybody.  My, my, every, my mother had a lovely voice, and so did her sisters and my cousins.  My, my sister, and my brother even wanted to study when he was in Berlin studying medicine.  He wanted to study voice, too. And my father, who came from Vilna, was, didn’t have a great voice, but he was a maven at hazzanas, for hazzanas. He, he loved, they loved music.  We used to listen to the radio from all over Europe, you know?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=318.0,357.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Classical music…\n\nBENYA:  Classical music…\n\nLEVIN:  …as well as…\n\nBENYA:  …as well as Jewish music, and…\n\nLEVIN:  Serious Jewish music?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  Well, serious.  I remember that we could get, as I say, the programs from, from all over Europe. And when Moshe Koussevitsky sang in Warsaw, my father would put the radio on the windowsill and open the window.  And the whole shtetl was out in the street, listening to the concert.\n\nSEROTA:  I presume there weren’t too many people in your shtetl that had radios.\n\nBENYA:  Exactly.  But our family loved music, and we did a lot of singing.  Z’miros and songs in different languages.  And we had records in the house of Yossele Rosenblatt and Hershman, and Galli-Curci and, and Caruso…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=357.0,410.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And the classics as well as the…\n\nBENYA:  And Lotte Lehmann singing Ave Maria by Schubert.  That was…\n\nLEVIN:  This was no problem?\n\nBENYA:  It was no problem.\n\nLEVIN:  Okay. And then you started voice lessons?  At what time?\n\nBENYA:  I started the, I found out that there was a voice teacher in the German border town, which was called Eit Kunin.  But my brother gave me the money for it, because I, my parents didn’t know about it.  They were, they did, piano playing was fine, but singing, making a career, was not exactly their idea of, for a girl to do, you know.  So I went, I used to go to that border town in Eit Kunin and take lessons. And this singing teacher had come from Berlin.  Her, her family lived in Berlin.  She was a Jewish lady.  And she advised me to go to Berlin and to enter a music school.  And she prepared me. I, I mean, I don’t know — she let me sing (?).  My voice was very small, and I had a very high, very coloratura voice. But anyway, I, I think I auditioned.  I sang Alleluia, by Mozart.  And, but I was accepted to the Stern'sches Konservatorium.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=410.0,501.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Now, where was this?\n\nBENYA:  Stern’sches was in Berlin.  And I stayed there even — it was shortly before Hitler came to power.\n\nLEVIN:  My Hebrew teacher, for example, went to school at — you know, whatever — in Poland.  And, but that, Schissler, all those people, it was all…\n\nSEROTA:  ? Schissler?  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  It was all Ashkenazi Hebrew.\n\nBENYA:  In the beginning, it was.  We had teachers who had taught previously in Ashkenazi.  And it was very hard for them. I remember my name was originally Benyakonsky.  You see?  In Lithuania, they had to add a, add a syllable at the end, like in Russian, aya.  In Lithuanian, it was ite.  Benyakonskite.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=501.0,544.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Now…\n\nBENYA:  And one of my Hebrew teachers, who was a very famous Hebrew teacher in those days — Glass, I think was his name — called me Benyakontkit.  It’s a, you know, the s is pronounced like…  And he mixed it up all the time.  He couldn’t get used to it.  He was an old gentleman.\n\nSEROTA:  The school, the school was co-educational?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  Co-educational.\n\nSEROTA:  Did your siblings go there?\n\nBENYA:  Of course.\n\nSEROTA:  Your brother went to the same school?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=544.0,574.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  My brother went.  He was older.  He graduated before me.  And my sister was younger and she went.  And we all — I mean, most of the children went, except for some very poor children, who used to go to the, to the Yiddish school. And they, and they called the Yiddish school Beis Hasefer.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s funny.\n\nBENYA:  You know?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  That was funny, that they called the Yiddish school.  And those were, we had, as I said, like ten years.  Like first in Mekhinah, and then…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=574.0,608.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So you had a, by the time you went…\n\nBENYA:  …graduation, we studied higher math in Hebrew.\n\nLEVIN:  So by the time you went to Berlin — which was when you were, what…\n\nBENYA:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  …18 years old or whatever…\n\nBENYA:  Yeah.\n\nLEVIN:  …you had already good grounding in Hebrew.\n\nBENYA:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  And of course, Yiddish was your mama-loshen.\n\nBENYA:  Mama-loshen.  And German, we studied in school German.  I still had a chance to study Russian for two years.  And I can read and write it, you know?\n\nLEVIN:  So you had a…\n\nBENYA:  And Lithuanian, the, the language of the country had to be studied.  And it’s not an easy language.  I mean, I spoke it, because we had a, a woman who took care of us as children.  So we spoke Lithuanian almost before we spoke Yiddish.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=608.0,652.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nBENYA:  And Lithuanian history had to be studied.  And the, the school was recognized by the government.  So for the graduation exams, they used to send these, they called them a deputat.  He was an, like a, some sort of a deputy from the Ministry of Education.  A Lithuanian gentleman who is, had to sit in on all those graduation exams, you know? So it was, it came in handy to know the languages.  And I studied Italian.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=652.0,693.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In Germany?\n\nBENYA:  When I was in Germany.  And here, too, after…\n\nLEVIN:  So now you went to…\n\nBENYA:  …my husband died.\n\nLEVIN:  So you went to Germany, to Berlin, to the conservatory.\n\nBENYA:  To, to the conservatory.\n\nLEVIN:  By yourself.  Your family stayed in Lithuania.\n\nBENYA:  In Lithuania.  And I had a furnished room with a piano.  And my father couldn’t afford to support me very well. So first of all, I, I could go to Berlin, make the trip with the first hundred dollars that my uncle sent me from America.  That was a fortune.  A hundred dollars was a thousand (?). I was a governess with, for a child who had come to visit his grandparents from — in those days, it was called Palestina.  You know, Palestine.  And I would — then, when Hitler came to power and the German Jews started emigrating to, to Israel or to Palestine in those days, I gave Hebrew lessons.  That was very lucrative for me, in those days.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=693.0,757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  So you were still in the conservatory at that point?\n\nBENYA:  Because — yes.  The truth is that the owners of the conservatory were Jews.  They, it, they, it was the Hollander family.  They were a very friendly — they had founded, I believe, the conservatory.  And a daughter, who was a singer, was the director at that time.  So it was still in existence for a few years.  But then, I don’t know when they closed it. And I start, started, I studied privately with a lady whose name was Mayana Mati.  That was already later.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=757.0,797.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  After ’33?\n\nBENYA:  After ’33.  That was, I studied with her, I was already, that time, I think, in ’37, when I was first engaged to sing with the Kulturbund, you know.\n\nSEROTA:  Going, going back for a second…\n\nBENYA:  Yeah?\n\nSEROTA:  …while you were a student in the conservatory…\n\nBENYA:  Yeah. Yes?\n\nSEROTA:  …I remember we once discussed that as a student, you supplemented your income by ushering at concerts.\n\nBENYA:  No.\n\nSEROTA:  No?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=797.0,823.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  No, you are mistaken, Barry.\n\nSEROTA:  Tell me.  Correct me.\n\nBENYA:  I wasn’t ushering.  I went to concerts.\n\nSEROTA:  You went to concerts.  Okay.\n\nBENYA:  And I heard Hershman give a concert in the Philharmonie.  Hershman gave a concert. It was still possible for, for Jews to arrange concerts in one of the big halls.  Because later, when I sang in Hechalutz with Vinaver, the concert was in the big synagogue. No, I supplemented — I was, as I say, I, I taught Hebrew to children and to, to adults.  And I kept quite busy in those days. I had friends who were, connected to the, the leading teachers in the Zionist organization used to send me Dr. Kolecko, Dr. Jacobson — used to send me students, recommend to me private students.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=823.0,877.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But you’re not, but I mean, you didn’t play with the idea of leaving in ’33 yourself to go to Palestine or to America, where you had a brother?  Or uncle.\n\nBENYA:  I, to go to Palestine, you needed, I think — I don’t know, I don’t remember how many pounds.  A thousand pounds.  You needed an affidavit — a Zertificat, they called it. Somehow, in the beginning, when Hitler came to power, life wasn’t so bad yet.  You know?  Jews — I used to go to the opera, to the theater.  Maybe not everybody did it. And in fact, when the La Scala came to Berlin, and Beniamino Gigli sang in Tosca, I went to hear him, and Hitler, yimakh shemo, was sitting in the box in that.  And I also went to a concert to hear Gigli, where Goebbels was sitting in the first row.  And I saw Göring on another occasion.  This is my claim to fame.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=877.0,943.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But as time approached — I mean, even ’36, ’37, you…\n\nBENYA:  I, as I say, I personally — first of all, at one time, it happened that I was, I had a friend who came from, also, a young man from Palestina, Palestine.  He studied also in Berlin.  And we spoke Hebrew.  And we were walking on the Kurfürstendamm speaking Hebrew and some S.S. or S.A. men thought it was Russian, and they accused us of calling out Heil Moscow or something.  And they, they schlepped us over to the police station.  But this was in the beginning, and the police at that time was not yet completely Nazified.  There were some people left over from the previous government. So he had a British passport.  And they let him go.  My passport was Lithuanian, so it wasn’t so impressive. And the, a, a crowd gathered after a — you know, with us, that came to the police station.  And they said they witnessed it, they heard us, and so…. So I was kept there in order to be sent to the Central Police at the Alexanderplatz.  But when everybody left and I, yeah, I had a very good friend, also from Lithuania, who was the librarian of the Lithuanian council.  So I gave his telephone number to my friend — the one from Israel — and I asked him to call him up and tell him that, what, what happened to me.  But this was late at night. And when everybody left, the police lieutenant said, “Fraulein, what actually happened?” I was really, I was young.  I was, I was innocent.  I even looked very innocent.  And I said, “We spoke Hebrew.  We were joking around.  I’m not — I, I don’t belong to any party,” I said. He said, “Go home.” And in those days, you know, in Germany, everybody had to be registered with the police.  And he checked with the precinct where I was registered.  And he found out that I told him the truth, and I went home. And as I came out, my friend from — that librarian — was already, either came, arrived in a taxi.  And the next day, we went to the consulate and we put in a complaint.  But then they didn’t bother me anymore, you know.  And for some reason, I don’t know. When one is young, probably you don’t have enough brains to, to be afraid or to, to worry.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=943.0,1119.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: But did it seem — I mean, it seems to me from talking to you that you were one who — let’s put it this way — that the perception wasn’t as it was, looking backwards.  In other words, it appeared that the anti-Semitism would blow over in a few years.  Is that correct?\n\nBENYA:  That’s what everybody thought.  They, they used to tell jokes.  I’m not going to tell it to you.  But there were anecdotes about it that in 1975, somebody — two, two survivors — meet on the street and say, “Couldn’t last much longer.”  Something, and that was the joke, in those days.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1119.0,1154.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Yeah.  It’s a black joke and it…\n\nBENYA:  It couldn’t, it, it couldn’t last…\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nBENYA:  …last much longer.\n\nLEVIN:  In other words, it’s a…\n\nBENYA:  I wasn’t, I was only there as a guest.  And I had, as I say, a foreign passport, which made me feel a little safer. And, no… but some of my friends — the German friends — were also very optimistic.  Nobody believed that it would come to what it later became, you know.  Except that in, on November ninth, when I was still there, you know what happened.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1154.0,1194.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  In ’38.\n\nBENYA:  ’38, in November…\n\nLEVIN:  Before we talk about…\n\nBENYA:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  Before we talk about it, before I talk about it, I want to ask you about Kristallnacht.\n\nBENYA:  Yes.\n\nLEVIN:  But I want to talk about the Kulturbund.  How you got involved in it, and how it started and…\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  It started, actually, in ’33.  With some leading German musicians, like Dr. Kurt Singer.  He was a nerve specialist.  And he, but at the same time, he was the, he was a, the manager of the Städtische Opera, at that time.  And he was also the conductor of The Doctor — I believe, The Doctor’s Orchestra of Berlin, if I’m not mistaken.  And a real staunch German Jew, you know. And he, I don’t know, and it, there was a, a, I think he was a playwright.  I don’t know exactly what — Julius Bab, Julius Bab. And they somehow, I don’t know if they conceived the idea.  But they, in those days, they still probably had connections to some of the German leaders.  And they, and there was an appointed Minister for, for the Kulturbund.  Hinkel.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1194.0,1264.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  A German minister?\n\nBENYA:  German minister for the Kulturbund.\n\nLEVIN:  What?  To supervise it or to…\n\nBENYA:  To supervise it.  And it was founded with a, it was founded in 1933.  I think they, they succeeded in getting a beautiful theater of their own, Kommandantenstrasse. And there was a theater group, with actors and directors that were fired from the German houses.  Conductors — William Steinberg, Joseph Rosenstock, and later, Rudolf Schwarz, who conducted me in Don Pasquale, in Rigoletto. And the orchestra consisted of all, all the musicians that were fired.  And the theater, too. There were stars — well-known actors and actresses.  One of, one survived, even she’s still alive in Berlin, Camilla Shapira.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1264.0,1334.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  She lives in Berlin now?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  She is still around.  She was in a concentration camp. And they founded, and this was, everybody in the theater had to be Jewish, and every spectator had to be Jewish. You could buy a subscription — a monthly subscription — for a certain amount.  And for that, you got a performance in the theater, an opera performance, a concert, a lecture, a movie. They, they imported the movie Mamele, I, with Molly Picon, I remember.  They imported Isa Kremer for a concert, in those days.  I heard of, in 19 — I, I looked up the Kulturbund book in 19 — she was there in 1936.  And other artists — somebody by the name Lipinskaya. And they…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1334.0,1395.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  There were certain composers that you couldn’t perform there, weren’t there? Yeah.\n\nBENYA:  Oh.  In the beginning, you could perform German authors and German composers.  In the beginning.  I don’t know when it changed.  In my time, when I, I, I was engaged in 1937, with, in the fall.  No German composers; no German authors.  No Schubert, no Beethoven.\n\nLEVIN:  Or Brahms.\n\nBENYA: No Mozart.\n\nLEVIN:  Haydn?  Brahms?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1395.0,1426.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  Haydn, Brahms.  But we did…\n\nLEVIN:  Bach.\n\nBENYA:  …Bach.  Not — in the beginning, they did. In fact, I have, still, a friend here who was in, a member of the opera, Suzanne Taubman.  You know who LeoTaubman was, the pianist?\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah.\n\nSEROTA:  The pianist.\n\nBENYA:  Suzanne teaches.  And perhaps it would be worthwhile even to interview her.  She’s a wonderful singer. So they did The Masked Ball, for instance.  Or Offenbach, Die Schöne Helena.\n\nLEVIN:  What about Jewish things?\n\nBENYA:  Jewish things?  In…\n\nLEVIN:  Music.\n\nBENYA:  Music?  Well, I was the one.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1426.0,1470.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  So what kinds of things did you sing there?  Jewish things.\n\nBENYA:  I sang, I sang, you know, there was a bookstore — a famous bookstore for Rubin Mass, who later became a publisher in Jerusalem.  Rubin Mass.  And he carried a lot of, from the music of the Petersburg Society of Jewish Music.\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, yeah?\n\nBENYA:  I bought it there.  That’s where I got it.\n\nLEVIN:  So that’s why your, but I, your acquaintance with that kind of repertoire, with the Gesellschaft Yiddishe Volksmusik in St. Petersburg…\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  It comes…\n\nLEVIN:  …began in Berlin.\n\nBENYA:  In Berlin.  I brought Kipnis’ folk songs to the collection.  Anything.  I have by, by Janot Roskin, some Yiddish songs…\n\nLEVIN:  Oh, yeah?  By the way, did you ever meet Roskin?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1470.0,1514.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  I think I did.\n\nLEVIN:  And he was there in Berlin?\n\nBENYA:  I think I did. I —\n\nLEVIN:  There was another composer I always meant to ask you about.  Rothstein.  James, for some reason…\n\nBENYA:  No, Rothstein I didn’t know.  I, not, I…\n\nSEROTA:  Did you know Kowalski?\n\nBENYA:  I knew Kowalski.  I sang his songs.  I, you’ll, you’ll see here…\n\nSEROTA:  I saw a list, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  There in my, in one of the albums, there’s a card of a concert in — a, a house concert.  You see later, there were a lot of concerts in private homes, you know?  People who loved music and had a, a big enough hall, and for a while, used to arrange house concerts there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1514.0,1551.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But Roskin you knew, you met?\n\nBENYA:  Everybody.  Roskin, I met him.  I remember, I met him once.  I met Arnold Nadler, too.  But he wrote a very nice review about, a review of me.\n\nLEVIN:  Somebody told me…\n\nBENYA:  And Schönberg I knew.\n\nLEVIN:  Schoenberg…\n\nBENYA:  Not Schoenberg…\n\nLEVIN:  Jakob Schönberg.\n\nBENYA:  Jakob Schönberg, I knew.\n\nLEVIN:  He came to, to New York, didn’t he?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  I’m, I remember I…\n\nLEVIN:  I think. Yes.  Somebody told me recently that in Berlin, that the Habima came to Berlin, at one time.\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  But that was earlier.\n\nLEVIN:  That must have been in the ‘20s.\n\nBENYA:  That was earlier.\n\nLEVIN:  But that’s before this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1551.0,1582.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"BENYA:  Before, yes.  That was before.\n\nSEROTA:  Of course, a lot of these songs that you sang were printed in Berlin.  Because I think Engel…\n\nLEVIN:  Yuval.\n\nSEROTA:  …had established right.  Yuval, he had established the —\n\nBENYA:  Yuval, Yuval, yes.\n\nLEVIN:  He had a publishing company.  Yes.  Yeah.\n\nBENYA:  And I remember, there was the — I, I sang some of, of the songs from — there was a lecture on Jewish music.  There’s a, a clipping in one of my albums that — I believe it was the wife of the president of the Zionist organization, Siegfried Moses.  And she was a pianist, musicologist.  And she gave a lecture, and I was the singer.  I think I sang ?.\n\nLEVIN:  Yeah?\n\nBENYA:  You know, the arrangement by Gnessin, is it?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1582.0,1633.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Gnessin, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  And other, you know, songs.  I made my repertoire at —\n\nLEVIN:  Did this repertoire find itself on programs?  I mean the, the, the St. Petersburg, especially Gnessin, and Krejn, did you perform that at all, in Berlin?\n\nBENYA: Yeah. Not really. No. Not really. Not really. They, you know, I must tell you that before I got engaged to sing in the opera, who recommended me? Chemjo Vinaver. But before that, his, later he married this Mascha Kaléko, who was a poet, she had spoken to a man in the Kulturbund office, who was in charge of, I don’t know, concerts and engagements. He said, she told him there’s a singer who sings Yiddish folk songs and Hebrew songs, and she made an appointment for me to, to meet him. And I went to his office and was sitting there — Herbert Fisher, he later worked here for the Hebrew University, and I had told him what I have in my repertoire, and no — nobody understands it. Nobody needs it. Something like that. Very…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1633.0,1720.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN: How about Yiddish folk songs?\n\nBENYA:  Well, that’s, he, he dismissed it completely.\n\nLEVIN:  The folk songs?\n\nBENYA:  Everything.  Everything Yiddish.\n\nLEVIN:  All the Yiddish.  Folk songs or art songs.\n\nBENYA:  Yiddish.  They hated the — in fact, Singer, who, who knew — I mean, Vinaver brought me to Singer to audition.  And then I sang in the Hechalutz with Vinaver. He hated his guts, because he was such a, a — you know, he, they hated the Ostjuden.  And Vinaver was some Ostjuden, you know.  But I learned a lot from him about…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1720.0,1757.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  And how about you?  You were Ostjuden too, so…\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  Okay. They needed me.  I, my voice, they needed a singer for that, for Don Pasquale, for Norina.  The concert, the singer who, that — the coloratura soprano had left for America.  So they were auditioning different people.  And they engaged me.\n\nLEVIN:  So the Kulturbund you were involved in up until the end of it, right?\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  So I sang, as I say, Don Pasquale in the fall of ’37.  And then Si J’était Roi was by Adolph Adam.  We did it in, in German, naturally.  Everything was in German.  In the, in the spring of ’38. And then Gilda in the fall.  And that was about the time when the Hechalutz was performed also…","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1757.0,1804.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  Now, tell me about that.\n\nBENYA:  …in concert.\n\nLEVIN:  That’s what I want to hear about — Hechalutz.\n\nBENYA:  Yes.  Well, it was a, a concert with orchestra and choir and soloists.\n\nLEVIN:  So, with full orchestra?\n\nBENYA:  With full orchestra.  There’s a picture.\n\nSEROTA:  Yes.\n\nBENYA:  I have it here in the album.  Vinaver was a very dedicated musician.  I must say, very…\n\nLEVIN:  He conducted?\n\nBENYA:  He conducted.  And it was, it took place in the, in the very big synagogue, Prinzregentenstrasse Synagogue.  As I…\n\nLEVIN:  You had a big enough stage for that there?\n\nBENYA:  Big enough, yes.  You’ll see the picture there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1804.0,1841.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  You have a picture of that performance?\n\nBENYA:  There’s a picture of the, of the orchestra with the, with the choir…\n\nLEVIN:  In Prinzregentenstrasse …\n\nBENYA:  …and me and, and the soloists…\n\nLEVIN:  And the soloists, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  …in, in the Prinzregentenstrasse .\n\nLEVIN:  But what about the…\n\nBENYA:  And it was done in German.  Except…\n\nLEVIN:  It was done in German?\n\nBENYA:  …my aria, Ani Chavatzelet Hasharon, I sang in Hebrew.\n\nLEVIN:  With full orchestra?\n\nBENYA:  With full orchestra.\n\nLEVIN:  I have two questions.  First of all, let’s go, first of all, it was done in German.  That defeated the whole purpose of the opera…\n\nBENYA:  The whole thing…\n\nLEVIN:  …was that…\n\nBENYA:  …of course, I don’t remember that, if it was…\n\nLEVIN:  Gut Shabbos.\n\nBENYA:  …sung Gut Shabbos or Gut Voch.  I don’t know.  It’s really in the evening.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1841.0,1875.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"LEVIN:  But there’s an Echad Mi Yodea, for example, I think, in there also.\n\nBENYA:  That I don’t remember.  I don’t remember.\n\nSEROTA:  I would imagine they probably did that in the original Hebrew.  They probably did those sections…\n\nBENYA:  It’s possible.  I…\n\nSEROTA:  Bar Yochai.  There’s also Bar Yochai, also.\n\nBENYA:  It’s possible.\n\nLEVIN:  But I mean, the whole idea of…\n\nBENYA:  But it was a great performance, really.\n\nLEVIN:  The whole idea of the opera is that it’s in Hebrew.\n\nBENYA:  Well, it was translated…\n\nSEROTA:  Not really.  It was written in Russian.\n\nLEVIN:  Originally?\n\nBENYA:  Really?\n\nSEROTA:  I think so.\n\nLEVIN:  With the title Hechalutz or the Russian title?\n\nSEROTA:  I don’t know.  If you look in the vocal piano score, there’s a Russian version, there’s a Yiddish version, a Hebrew version.\n\nBENYA:  Well, he’s so….  I met, I knew…\n\nSEROTA:  Weinberg.\n\nLEVIN:  Weinberg, yeah.\n\nBENYA:  …Weinberg.  I met him here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1875.0,1907.0"},{"id":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011/transcript/35219/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"SEROTA:  Weinberg was a Russified Jew.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://milken.aviaryplatform.com/collections/1159/collection_resources/40378/file/112011#t=1907.0,1923.136"}]}]}]}