Dorothy Anker Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Dorothy Anker 3 1
A. I mean then we tried to correspond and find possibilities maybe to
go to United States. And we did not have any close relatives.
Q. You had to have a sponsor, didn't you?
A. We had to have a sponsor in Arnerlca. We had put in by chance a
number at the American consul . . .
END OF TAPE
Q. Good morning, Dorothy Anker. A week has $one by since our first
taping. And we had gotten up to the year 1938 and you had mentioned the
Crystal Night which was really a black blot on ~ermany's escutcheon.
Rut I'd like to go back just a little bit and talk about your finances
and the financial picture of the Jewish population in general in Germany
leading up to this year. What had happened to your business? You told
that the businees at first was lucrative after HitLer came Zn because
you were earning foreign exchange for Germany but after that it went
down. Now I: presume that by 1938 when I think you also told me you had
a German comnlissioner who had taken over, there was really no bueiness
left. Were you getting any income from your business at that point?
A. At that the we did not get any income any more. Maybe some
outstanding bills were paid like when you have a business things take a
long time to evaluate. There are outstanding notes and outstanding
bills. These things coming in but it was no new creative buslaem any
more at all.
Q. Were these outstanding accounts coming in from abroad, or from German
customers?
A. Maybe probably from both sources. That's possible,
Q. Were German customers paying you if they were so called Aryan
CUE tomers?
A. Oh, yes. I mean when they owed us, they were honest to pay. Bur I
mean some were commisuions. We used to have some army supplies and 80
on. And there it goes through a lot of red tape until you actually
receive your money in accounts receivable. But everything wag honestly
paltd to us I think. I was not in the business part and I really do not
know too much about these things. But I know that no new business was
created, that all our employees but jdst one secretary had left us. And
this secretary helped my father with some of the letters which were
necessary to write. We owned property in town. We had, I mean, people
had r0 pay us rent for the property. We had rented out our warehouses
for storage I think. We did not have our own storage any more.
Q. Now how long were you allowed to keep your property? Was it
eventually taken away from you?
Dorothy Anker Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield