Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From Houston. We have quite a few friends in
Houston.
Mr. JENNER. Now, I am going to, in a moment, bring you to the period
when you met the Oswalds.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. But I want you to tell me first, if you will, slowly, the
nature of the Russian colony in Dallas at that time.
Now, as I understand it, you met the Oswalds in the summer of 1962.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. In the late summer.
Mr. JENNER. There was a small Russian colony?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. You see, I wouldn't classify it as a colony.
There are some odds-and-ends Russian people.
Mr. JENNER. I am using a reference to identify a more or less
heterogeneous group of people in Dallas who had a measure of common
interests arising out of the fact that either they or their parents had
been born or had a relatively immediate contact with Russia.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, you see, there are two types of Russian
people there--some that came in after the revolution, and there are
some new ones that escaped during the Second World War, from Germany.
Mr. JENNER. You are now telling me about this situation in Dallas, are
you not?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. I am trying to classify who was before and who
came in later.
Mr. JENNER. But you are telling me about people in Dallas?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Go ahead.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. From what I know, the latest arrivals to the
United States was, of course--Marina was, and I think there was another
one, Declan Ford.
Mr. JENNER. Mrs. Declan Ford?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. She was on What's My Life, or something, a
dramatic story. She married an American boy, and he rescued her, and
so on and so forth. They came over and lived in Dallas. His name was
Skotnicki, and then they divorced. I think he was Polish. He was a nice
fellow, but he was too anxious to make too much money, so the marriage
broke up.
Mr. JENNER. There were at this time in Dallas some people of Russian
derivation. Some had come directly from Russia--that is, in the sense
that they were caught up in the vortex of the Second World War.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. The Germans invaded Russia. They were prisoners, civil
prisoners.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Her story is something like that.
Mr. JENNER. Taken by the Germans and brought to Germany, and when the
war ended, they met American boys, and married them.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes; but that is the only one I know. I don't
know of anybody else.
Mr. JENNER. Then others had escaped Russia or Poland?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Yes. For instance, one of them--she was never
even in Russia--that type of Russian colony. She was married to an
American man.
Mr. JENNER. Well, this is a group that had common interests--interested
in each other?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Of course, they all
criticize each other. Some people were closer, some people were further
apart. They were not exactly all friends--I will put it that way.
Mr. JENNER. Let's see--you had been there--well, you were off and on
commencing in 1953, and then relatively permanently commencing in 1957.
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. 1956, 1957.
Mr. JENNER. Now, as people came to Dallas, that is persons with this
history, did you people--and I don't mean just you alone, but I am
talking about the whole group--become interested in them, seek to meet
them, become acquainted?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, if anybody heard that there was all of
a sudden a new Russian somewhere, there was, naturally, interest in
people to know who they are, where they are from, what kind of people
they are. And, of course, if they were destitute or something--and none
of them were really--only Marina was--then we helped them.
But there were no organizations, no particular organizations to help or
wait for them to come in, because there was no necessity.
Mr. JENNER. Now, were you generally--were you advised normally in
advance that somebody new was coming?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. No. In fact, they were talking about Marina for
months to us. I said, after all, we should really meet that young girl.
They were talking for a couple of months.
Mr. JENNER. Who?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Well, we found out about her actually through, I
believe, George Bouhe. I think George probably told you the name.
Mr. JENNER. What about Max Clark?
Mrs. DE MOHRENSCHILDT. Max Clark, too, because they lived in Fort
Worth. Max Clark and Gali Clark. And actually George Bouhe was very
active. He is an old busybody, and he loves to do things, charity
things. He is the one that organizes things like that. So he said he
even had a fund for them--the people would give money--because he gave
money to pay for her teeth, you know, everything that was necessary.