[question] I am not going to answer such an insult. Stop with that. Would you ask your own grandmother such a question? Your own grandmother would slap your face for such a question. You look like a smart girl but your questions show you’re not so smart like you think you are.

[question] Was I disappointed? The verdict? Do I regret? You mean personally? Ask a straight question and then I understand it. Nothing could bring back anyone from the dead. The trial gave attention to the fire and maybe that was the most important thing. Twelve girls just from my street, we buried. Essex Street, that’s right. So many girls died, for what?

[question] I don’t know how many children there were on that day, but usually there were little girls in the corner, maybe two or three, we called it the nursery, Rose Gottlieb, she was in charge of the little girls, giving them what to do, and sometimes she brought them some extra rolls to eat from the bakery where her brother worked, so why wouldn’t they be there that day like all the other days, and it was a Saturday, so the little girls must have been there. Rose was a nice girl. She came from a farm, she was Polish, and she didn’t like the city so much. But she was glad she didn’t have to be with the chickens anymore like on the farm she came from. She had to wring their necks, she told me, so they can sell them in the market, and she had to do it or her father would beat her.

[question] How could the bosses be ignorant? Did they think fairies came in the night and trimmed the threads and sewed the labels? Of course they saw the children. Mr. Harris was always walking around and poking into everything. Nobody thought they were secret except when the inspectors came and then everyone pretended while the little girls hid in the scrap barrels with scraps covering them up.

[question] I didn’t see any of the little girls on the sidewalk after. Maybe they burned up. I don’t know what happened to them. They disappeared, I agree with you. You find out about them, you tell me.

[question] I already answered that. Now we go back? Nobody told me what to say except Mr. Rubin, he went over my story with me so I shouldn’t be nervous, and then it turned out that I wasn’t nervous enough, the way I told my story. They got me all confused. I don’t want to keep discussing this.

[question] No, I already told you last time I didn’t go back to work like before, because of my baby. My son, Isaac. The unions, they gave me some help, and the Red Cross had a special fund, also from other people, there were all these funds, there were charities, there was a special fund from the United Hebrew Trades, and there was Local 25 of the Dressmakers Union, they all did so much for people like me after the fire. Some of the girls had such burns, they suffered more than I did. I know it doesn’t seem like I was lucky, but I was. I could keep alive. I didn’t get such bad burns like some of the other girls. I could have my little grocery store, they helped me move to Brooklyn after the baby came, and they helped me to get it going, with a loan for buying the goods, and I could put food on the table for the baby. We always had enough. We didn’t have more than enough, but we had enough.