We lived in the center of Berlin.
My parents were upper middle-class.
My father was a sales representative for a large textile mill.
He earned a very nice living. We had a nice apartment.
The ambience was cultured. We had music.
I remember my parents dressing up in evening clothes and going to the opera.
We had theater, and they would take us along.
We were comfortable economically,
at least before the National Socialist regime took over in Germany.
I'm talking about the early years that I remember,
in the early 1930s, before 1933.
My father in particular was...
German first and Jewish second.
Now, this does not mean that he was not an observant Jew.
We were what was then called observant.
In this country, in the U.S.A.,
this can be translated into "conservative."
We observed all the holidays. We went to services Friday night...
and Saturday morning, if my father didn't have to work.
He made sure I went and my brother went.
We both-- my brother and I-- sang in the synagogue choir.
Usually synagogues had boys' choirs.
We celebrated all the holidays.
My father never worked on the holidays.
We were-- without keeping a kosher home--
yet we observed all the traditions.