In this video, Mania Kay talks about feeling excluded from the Jewish community when she and her husband first moved to Kitchener. With the help of a friend, the Kays opened a tailor shop on King Street West. Source: Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, 2007
[00:00-00:07]
Video begins with inter-title in white text on black screen while instrumental music plays and fades into the next frame: Mania Kay and her husband felt excluded from the community when they first arrived in Kitchener, Ontario, in October 1948.
[00:08-00:19]
Cut to Holocaust survivor Mania Kay, sitting in front of some chairs and a light wall background, and looking to the right of the camera. The camera shows her face and shoulders as she speaks during an interview conducted in Kitchener in 2007.
>> Mania Kay: And the rest of the Jewish community…
[00:12-00:18]
The name “Mania Kay” and the location of the filmed interview, “Kitchener”, appear in white text above Mania's left shoulder.
>> …they couldn't understand us. We could speak the same language.
[00:20-00:26]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of a busy commercial street scene showing a group of people about to board a parked street car, and more pedestrians waiting to cross the street on the left-hand side of the image. The photo caption appears in white text in the bottom-right corner, “Kitchener, 1940s”.
>>I looked at them. They are settled in…
[00:27-01:53]
Cut to Mania Kay in front of the camera.
>>…they have young children, maybe the second generation. The way they lived and the way their children. And we didn't have anything, absolutely nothing. But we made a friend. That friend was indescribable. He brought clothes for my baby from his daughter. They had a clothing store in Stratford— no it was still in Kitchener, on King Street. And after he went home and had his supper, he came to us to see if it was warm enough, and for the baby, if I had hot water to bathe her. And we were living in the back of a store that was selling bread. So we had to get us 5 o'clock in the morning to let the baker from Toronto unload his produce.
[01:54-01:59]
Second inter-title appears in white text on black screen while instrumental music continues playing: Joe Brown, a family friend, helped the Kays open a tailor shop on King Street West in Kitchener.
[02:00-02:10]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of a group of ten people, including a young girl, in a tailor shop room. A woman sits at a sewing machine and the group is surrounded by clothing and fabric. The photo caption appears in white text in the top-left corner, “Kay Bros. Tailor Shop, Kitchener, ca. 1950”. The camera zooms in on Mania (left) with her daughter and husband.
>>Then we decided to open for ourselves. You see, one brought the other.
[02:11-02:34]
Cut to Mania Kay in front of the camera.
>>My husband brought his brother, and then they brought a brother-in-law, and a cousin, and the tailor shop was big. And it was working, because in Kitchener there was a German population. And those people like tailor-made clothes.
[02:35-02:44]
Music plays for the remainder of the video. Three credit pages appear in white text on black screen: Interview conducted by Small Jewish Communities Project, Kitchener, 2007, Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre
Images: Kitchener Public Library; Mania Kay Family Collection
Directing: Helgi Piccinin; Editing and Colorization: Michaël Gravel, Helgi Piccinin; Audio Mix and Original Music: Pierre-Luc Lecours. [Logo for Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine ethnologique]
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, copyright 2017.
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End of transcript.