Tag #138077 - Interview #78465 (Egon Lovith)

Before 1989 Margo and I felt that the situation was unbearable. For the entire time, even though I was a member of the Party, I kept my Jewish identity as well. [Although Egon is not religious, he considers his Jewish identity important as a way to relate to the world.] After fascism and socialism, communism seemed the right choice for me but it slowly became a burden because I’m in the category of people that benefited little by communism. Even though communism provided me work and the opportunity to advocate communist doctrines, to be honest, it affected me very negatively overall. They promoted that the goal of the communist system was to achieve a higher state of humanity, where people wouldn’t be exploited and where people would be paid fairly for their contribution to the state. However, in the case of the Loviths, the fact that we had come from the concentration camp and had absolutely nothing didn’t bother the communists. Moreover, we were put in a discriminatory category, which hardly provided any living arrangements for us. Not having children we were always on the bottom of the list to get anything, even though it was the concentration camp that made us unable to have children in the first place. This was a big grievance for us and we felt that there was no reparation even when, years later, we were given a few dollars of indemnity.