Tag #123094 - Interview #101186 (Leizer Finchelstein)

You, who live today, didn’t get to experience unemployment, especially in the field of constructions before 23rd August [1944] [before World War II], winter was a dead season. Nobody could find any work. And we were forced to work 12-14 hours a day during summer so that we could save some money. There was no child support offered by the state in those days, no unemployment indemnity, no retirement pay, nothing. You didn’t have a job, you were a dead man. All the more so since you had to gather wood for the winter, for there was no central heating, no running water, no electricity. I learned my trade by the light of the gas lamp.