We were similar in some very specific things:
we were both from Germany,
both grew up in homes...
where the parents never learned Hebrew
so we spoke German at home.
But I left [Germany] at the age of 10
and I am very much embedded in the German culture.
Rachel left when she was one year old.
Her family first moved to Italy.
They lived for one year on the island of Capri
until their German maid smuggled their money
out of Nazi Germany and brought them the money,
and then they came to Israel.
I think that Rachel was two years old when they came to Israel.
She knew German. Rachel, unlike me…
one can say about me that I am completely tone deaf.
I cannot reproduce even one tune,
one line of melody. And because I love to sing,
it is torture for anyone who is anywhere around me.
Rachel had perfect pitch.
Despite the fact that she never learned to read or write German,
she knew German just as well as I do.
Here and there maybe even more,
just from listening.
So that means her background was very similar to my background.
Her father and my father had received about the same kind of education
and lived approximately in the same social class in Germany.
By contrast, Rachel and I were total opposites.
I'm more at home in the world of
abstract thoughts, of theories,
which did not interest Rachel at all.
She had this ability,
some say supernatural ability,
to penetrate into people's feelings.
I say 'supernatural' because
an eminent professor at Tel Aviv University,
Professor Hans Kreitler, who was involved in psycho... what is it called?
Psycho something – I've forgotten what –
with supernatural things, seemingly supernatural,
he did scientific experiments with [Rachel]
with rather strange results, one could say.
For example, he seated a person in one room with cards,
and Rachel sat in the other room.
The person pulled out a card, and Rachel had to guess
which card it was.
And there is some fixed standard
to what extent one can randomly guess correctly.
And she guessed five or six times more than that!
She knew what people were thinking. Simple.
Often. And had a great approach with people because of it,
which I rather lack.
The theoretical world,
such things did not really attract her.