Louis Greenblatt interviews Dr. Max Thaler on Thursday, December 6, 1973. 8pm.

I'm Dr. Max Thaler. I was born in a small town in Poland. The name of it was Magierov. I don't know whether this town still exists. It was half destroyed in the first world war and probably completely destroyed in the second. Anyway, it was a small Jewish stetle and that stetle was where we lived. There were about 500 Jews in the center of town. The surrounding area were more farmers. The Jewish people in this town were mostly store keepers.. They had stores, and they went to surrounding towns and sold their merchandise.

We had a small store in the center of the town, mostly clothing. I remember once when I was about 4 or 5 years old, there was a fire in this stetle. It was about 3 o'clock at night. Everybody was awakened and had to leave town. And they were away almost all night. (This was around 1913, about a year before the first world war.) Then when we came back into the town, half of the town was burned down. And the stores that were left were mostly robbed and plundered...

And around the same time, I remember I saw a car coming to our town. And the whole town was up to see that miracle (laughs) The car got stuck in the muddy road (there wasn't a paved road) and they had to come with two oxen to pull out the car.

In this stetle, there were three or four circles of houses. In the center there was a Catholic church and a Greek Roman church. And then there was a police station, and a grade school. There was a physician in town, and he had the pharmacy, there was no pharmacy by itself... the physician dispensed the drugs. There was no pharmacy in town.

I can remember, it was one morning, the whole town was assembled and awful excited and the news came that the First World War broke out. Everybody was afraid that the Russians will be there in no time because it was on the border not too far from there, the Russian border. And, most of the Jews took all their belongings, what they could carry, and tried to go to a bigger town. The next bigger town was Anaruska Lemberg (?) and my parents... my father stayed in town, left behind, he wanted to take care of our belongings... We had two houses there, and so he just couldn't leave.

And, my mother, with the family, me and my brothers and sisters, went to Lemberg. We stayed in Lemberg about 8 days, and the war was very bad... The Russians invaded the area where we lived and we barely could escape by the last train from Lemberg to Vienna. The train ride normally from Lemberg to Vienna took about 24 hours. At that time it took us 3 days to get there there, by the last train, because there were military trains all the time. So our train had to wait. The military trains had preference. I remember the train was awful crowded, we hardly had anything to eat. At several stations we got water and food from the soldiers who drove by, they gave us food, otherwise we may have starved. I remember the train was so crowded we didn't have any seats, we were all on the floor, and most of the people were standing. On one occasion it was night and we had to stop, and all the lights were turned off, because a Russian plane — it was the first plane I had ever seen — flew over and we wee afraid we were going to be bombed or something. I think, I can't remember which city it was, maybe it was Krakow, I think it was Krakow, where that happened..

Well, we arrived in Vienna. First we moved to... I think we had some relatives in Vienna, before we moved there, we stayed in their apartment. And we got some pension from the Austrian government because our merchandise was taken away by the military for their use, and we got receipts... and when we came to Vienna we showed them to the authorities, and they paid us monthly a special amount so we could live on it. That was going on for two or three years.That was a great help because we were small children and my mother couldn't go to work and leave the children alone. After two or three years, gradually, our older sisters would get some work.

During the whole war in Vienna we didn't hear anything from our father. Galicia was occupied by the Russians. The first time we could hear from our father was three or four months after the end of the war, that was the First World War. And my father wrote us that there was no way for us to come back because the town was almost destroyed and there was no way to make a living there. So, he came to Vienna and we stayed in Vienna until Hitler came.

In Vienna, I studied medicine. It took me about five years to study in the University of Vienna. In 1934 I finished my studies and in 1935 I graduated and I got my Doctor diploma. After graduation I was for about 3 or 4 year in different hospitals where I worked. I worked with ... Hans Hoff ... was a neurologist and a psychiatrist. I was there for two years. I intended firs to specialize in neurology and psychiatry, but later on... in Vienna at that time, there was no way for a Jew to get ahead, so I gave that up and just tried to improve my knowledge in general medicine so I could become a general practitioner. So worked in Winer (?) Krankenhaus — that was a big hospital in.. Fierednbezig (?) for a year in internal medicine, one year in surgery... After a year I worked in obstetrics and gyocology. And then in Algemeines Krankenhaus I worked all year in dermatology.

In 1938 Hitler came to Vienna and we had to try to get away, but it wasn't so easy. In November, I think it was the 12th of November, there was a general pogram in Germany and Vienna, and I was arrested (most of the Jews were arrested and most of them were transported to concentration camps, from Vienna at that time, mostly to Dachau.) My wife was able to get me out before I was sent away from Vienna, and about a week later we escaped to Switzerland.

(How did we escape?) My brother, who was arrested by police, was arrested for 2 months, ws released with the condition to leave the country within 8 days and there was... you couldn't get a passport and you couldn't get a visa to get away.. so he had to try just to go without a passport and without a visa. And, we had friends in Switzerland, and they told us there were certain areas where you can enter Switzerland without being molested by the custom officers. You can hide away and so on. And that's what he did. And, about a week later he wrote us the way that he went and we did the same thing.

I went with my wife and we stayed in a small border town... and we stayed there three or four days, and every night, because we had to go at night, you know at daytime you couldn't go... The border was a small river, the old Rhine... That was in December. It was not frozen yet. And the water was at that time quite shallow, so we could wade through. There was of course a big bridge that goes to police stations that we had to avoid. We had to wade through the river. We went every night, four, five, six times. Every time we went there, we got caught. Either from the German police or the Swiss police. They had blood hounds, of course, and the blood hounds found out easily...

One night I went through... of course it was dark... and I fell over something. It was a dung heap.(Laughs) I probably smelled so badly the bloodhounds lost the scent. And I escaped that way. I was hiding in a barn. In the morning I could see on the sight of the town, that it was already Switzerland and I called up my brother and then they notified the immigration office, the Jewish...?... in St Galen. They already knew about me through my brother. And they needed a doctor, and I was employed to take care of St Gallen and surroundings. I had an office in St. Gallen, with office hours in the fornoon and in the afternoon and patients came, and I took care of them. And then I had to go on home calls. I didn't have a car so I went by train. I also went by train to the surrounding small towns.

First we lived in a small town. My family and I lived in Degersheim, it's a small town about ten miles outside of St. Gallen and I went by train every day to St. Gallen. I had in a way a better position than the other immigrants because I was employed. I got a salary. And I had more freedom of movement because the Swiss authorities kept the immigrants confined, like in a camp, they were not allowed to leave that camp without permission. They couldn't leave the town unless they had a special reason and they got permission to go there. But I had permission to go to anyplace because of the profession. So I had a great advantage in that way.

So, we stayed in Switzerland for ten years. We tried to come to the states. We applied for a visa of course, but it was impossible to get for all kinds of reasons. And of course when the war broke out we were completely unable to leave the country. And still, we had it relatively good. We didn't suffer any... We had enough food. We had enough clothing. We were a lot better off than anybody else in Europe.

Of course, we were afraid, about when Hitler is going to come. It was not the opinion of the people that Hitler would not come or that he would come. Everybody knew that he would come. Only the time... When is he going to come? So we often did not take off our clothing at night and we had our bicycles waiting for us outside so in case if he comes we can flee. We don't know where to, of course, because we were surrounded by Hitler. That was the way we felt.

I remember once I applied to enter the foreign legion, in France, and they said No they are not allwed to accept people from neutral Switzerland. I should come to France first and then they would accept me... but they said..??? I was lucky.

Well, after ten years, after the war, we finally got permission, we finally got the visa to the United States. (Did you have a command of English in those days?) Hardly. Occasionally we listened to English broadcasts from London, but I did not know very much English. We really didn't think we would ever come to America. It had been so long, we really didn't believe it anymore.

I had it relatively good in Switzerland. On many occasions I was allowed to take over the practice of Swiss physicians when they went into the service for two or three months. I was in winterthur twice, that's a big city, Winterthur and then I was in smaller towns on several occasions. That was good for me. I earned a little money, and I saw something better.

For several years we lived in Trogan , that's a nice town in Appenzell, not too far from St. Gallen. About ten miles, in the mountains. A very pretty town. Trogan was famous later on because of Pestalizidorf . Pestalazi en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Pestalozzi.

Well, then we came to the States. We had two children then, Ellen, Joanie. Ellen was born in St. Gallen and Joanie was born in Trogen. My parents in law who were able to come to New York in '39 before the 2nd World war broke out, then after the was they sent us Affidavits, and, we were able to come in '48.

The first thing I did, I went to do internship in the Flushing Hospital, first of all to learn English, and then to learn the American way of treating people. Then I was able to study for the State Board. The doctor diploma from Vienna was recognized in the United States. I was a medical doctor with my diploma from Vienna, but I had to make the state license which was very tough for somebody who had graduated in '35. I studied very hard for over a year, but I made it the first time. I didn't have to repeat and subjects. I was lucky.

(Where did your income come from during those years?) Well, I earned $100.00 a month from internship. And my wife earned a little on the side from sewing dresses and things like this. My parents...??? But $100.00 at that time could do quite a bit. Yeah, really. We didn't have to pay rent. We lived with my wife's parents. In the week I lived in the hospital. Only on the weekends I came home. On Saturday. So, Saturday afternoon and Sunday. It was very hard. N, ot so hard for me, but hard for my family, the children...

After I made the State Board, in summer I went to a Jewish camp as camp physician. I was there for two months. Camp Wellmet. It was very nice. A nice experience. I was there six weeks alone, and then for two weeks my wife and children came. So we had a good time.

Well, now I got my license, I wanted to settle down. I tried it in New York. It was difficult there. And, my wife didn't like it at all. In Switzerland we lived in small towns. She liked it much. So we went to the office of resettlement of foreign physicians, and, I came there for an interview. They asked what I really wanted. I said I wanted to be a general practitioner in a small. And they said, "You are lucky. We just have a letter from a small town in northern New York. They are very anxious to get a doctor there." They showed me the letter. The letter was from a committee from Parishville which were anxious to get a physician. They wrote they are a small town. We didn't have a physician for several years. It would be a very, very good place for him. He would have a good practice. Whether he would come and see us. Well, I wrote them that I would be interested and they invited me and I came to Parishville.

This committee had several prominent members. There was reverend Rockwell, he was a minister here, and then the Lawyer Daniels, and Fay Duffy, the barber, and Donald Young was at that time a town board member or something. I stayed one week at Donald Young's home and he showed me around. And, I saw it would be a nice place to live. And, I came home and talked it over with my wife. We both came here for another eight days to look it over. We stayed here in that house across the street from my office now. Bliss, was the name of the people there. He was a teacher in Parishville. And we stayed there, and we decided to come. We looked around the place. There were several houses available. The one we chose was this here, where we live now ... ...