Interview with Edna Miller, Frieda Baer, November 6, 1986

Interview Summary

Frieda introduces herself and explains that she was born in Germany. Her father passed away when she was young, and she was raised with 30 girls. She came to Cincinnati in 1913, and she worked for a dentist in Cincinnati for a few months before she moved in with an uncle, Ben Brady. She had two children, Edna Miller and Harold Baer. They all live in Danville. She did not speak any English and they were married about four months and her husband came home and could speak English. Danville looked like an old town. The street is the same where they lived on. Her husband’s sister didn’t want to live in Danville. After the children were older, they moved in one of the older houses that had upstairs and downstairs. They bought a house at main street.

Frieda raised her children in a Jewish home. They went to Lexington for Sunday school, but she didn’t do much in the community. She discusses how her and her husband were involved with organizations in the Jewish communities. They kept the holidays in their household and they went to Temple. She talks about the Jewish families in the community. There were a lot of psychiatrists and doctors around during wartime. They never felt that there was any anti-Semitism. Frieda explains the difference between southern Jews and northern Jews by explaining

that those who lived in the cities had to be more aggressive than the ones who live in the smaller towns. None in her family intermarried, but now it is nothing new.

Towards the end of the interview, Frieda describes her reaction to the Holocaust. They tried to bring someone over but her family wouldn’t let her. Her father tried to help everybody and bring everyone over that they could during the Holocaust. Finally, Frieda and Edna discuss the industry in Danville and how they don’t think it’s a bad thing, though they no longer have the farms that they once had.

Interview LC Subject

Jews--Kentucky--Lexington. Race relations--Kentucky--Lexington

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