Some Jews did help Japanese Americans during war

Louie Gold quietly made a big difference for one interned family

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2008-12-15T00:00:00

Ed. Note: The following reader response was provided to the Jewish Review by Terri Maizels Levine, Harriet Gold Maizels, Dan Gold and family.

My family read with interest the article in the Nov. 15 Jewish Review about Ellen Eisenberg and her book “The First to Cry Down Injustice: Western Jews and Japanese Removal During WWII.”

Ms Eisenberg discusses the Portland Jewish silence regarding the internment of Japanese Americans. While the community as a whole may not have had a formal response to the internment, my grandfather, Louis “Louie” Gold, took steps to do the right thing during a time when many were silent or took advantage of the situation.

Louie and his brother Alex Gold owned a grocery store in Oak Grove. As Ms Eisenberg points out, few in the Portland Jewish community had contact with the Japanese-American community, but my grandfather had numerous close friendships with Japanese Americans based on the nature of his business.

Louie drove the truck each morning to pick up produce for the grocery store and as my mother, Harriet Gold Maizels, relates, “He had a huge number of buddies and many were Japanese, Chinese and Italian because so many were in the produce business.”

She continues, “one day at the produce markets, a friend told Dad that he and his family were being sent to the internment camp at Tulelake, Calif., and asked if he wanted to buy the family’s grocery store. He said that the sale had to be done very quickly because they were leaving within a few days and if it wasn’t sold, they would just close the doors and walk away.”

Our family believes Louie and Alex knew that the government would have confiscated the store from the Japanese family and that by buying it, they were breaking the law. We believe that they took the risk of doing this as an act of civil disobedience.

My uncle Dan Gold adds that there were only three people who knew about the deal outside of the immediate family, including Louie’s accountant and attorney, both of whom advised against it. My grandfather put his family at risk in order to protest the internment as well as to protect his friend.

My mother continues, “The deal was done over a handshake, which is how Dad did business, so in 1942 the brothers had two stores. I can tell you that my Dad was a stranger during those years because he left in the dark to go to pick up produce and came home as I was going to bed. This was Monday through Saturday and on Sunday he went back to do bookwork.”

“The store really thrived during the years 1942-1946. Out of gratitude, Dad and Alex decided to share the profits. Dad started a bank account in his own name, and paid taxes on the income and interest. But we all knew where the money was going if the Japanese family ever came back.

“In 1946 they did come back to a large amount of cash, which included the cost of the land and building and a large share of the profits earned during the time they were in the camp. The Japanese family (I never had a name) moved away from Portland shortly thereafter.”

My grandfather told a lot of interesting stories when we were growing up, but this was something he never talked about. In fact, I didn’t know any of this until after he passed away.

Poppa Louie was always unpretentious and I’m sure he never thought that what he had done was unusual; he’d never think twice about helping a friend in need.

Our family still owns that building although it is no longer a grocery store.

A picture exists of the SP grocery in the 1940s. It is from the Oregonian archives and we believe that it was run with a related story about the internment camps.

 

THE S.P. GROCERY at 2020 SE Powell Blvd. in Portland was acquired by Louie Gold from its Japanese American owners at the outbreak of World War II when local Japanese Americans were transported to Internment camps. Gold, who was already in the grocery business, operated the store during the war and saved its earnings for the Japenese American family who eventually returned to Portland after the war before resettling elsewhere. The building, no longer a grocery, is still owned by Gold’s heirs. The photograph, provided by the family, is said to have been first published in The Oregonian.