Shortly after World War II in Eastern Europe, Slobodan Dan Paich was just a boy, and he says life felt void of color. But he remembers the moment light came back in – it was all thanks to a certain musical tale about a dark-haired beauty named Tosca.
Olin Thomas is a retired army veteran. He says it wasn’t until after he joined the military that he realized he was gay. Despite his fears about coming out, he found support in unexpected places. Thomas sat down in the StoryCorps booth at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco with his friend, Hugo Salinas, to tell his story.
From time to time, the StoryCorps team goes mobile, and collects interviews at specific sites around the Bay Area. This piece is part of a series of interviews that took place at Highland Hospital in East Oakland.
