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CHAPTER 10

Now we were finally in America and our new life began.

"I just arrived then, and we got down, and processed another few hours. Finally they took all my papers, the basic papers, for the records, for the immigration, and I just got a green paper. Maybe they took away that paper from me. I don't remember what happened to it. I know I never seen it. I know I wanted to keep it. I think they must have taken it back."

"But how did they take it back if you didn't give it to them?"

"When I got off the boat. I didn't give it to them when I was in Butzbach, but I gave all the papers they asked me to give them back, for the immigration. So I must have given back that paper, because I wouldn't have thrown it away. That was very symbolic paper for me. I got the green paper, all I remember, that's all what I had now."

"Did the Joint meet the people who were coming down?"

"Yes. At the Joint, there was representatives a few, volunteers, a young woman. Mendu [Brody, Leibu's brother] came out. He was there with his girl friend. He had a Polish [girl friend], a Rebbe's a 'tochter' (daughter). He knew her from Germany, from the DP camp. He was going out with her. He came out with her to the boat. That was very nice. I appreciated that. At least I had somebody I know!"

"Leibu wasn't there yet."

"Leibu was in Germany yet."

"And Serenke, they were coming next week."

"Serenke was in Butzbach. And I got taken over, the Joint people took us over. We got off the boat and processed the papers, and they took us by bus, I think by bus."

"And that's when your suitcases disappeared for a while."

"Yes. Oh, I had two suitcases, they take separate. They took it from us, and we got it back in the Hotel Diplomat. In the bus we got in, everybody's suitcases, and we went in the bus to the Hotel Diplomat."

As can be imagined, my mother had very little of value in her suitcases. She had only three things of value, a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume, some fine wool material, both of which Leibu had given her, and a five branch sterling silver 'lachter' (candelabra) to light the 'shabbos' candles. However, while the suitcases were out of my mother's hands, someone opened them up and took out the perfume and the cloth. Surprisingly, they left the most valuable and important item, the 'lachter'. It is very beautiful and my mother still has it today. Many years later, after I was married, I bought an antique 'lachter' similar to that one for my family.

"The Diplomat hotel? It's still around! It's around the corner [form where we were working at the time]."

"I always thought, I never remember where it was. I knew it was in Manhattan someplace. This week [fall of 1985] when I was waiting for the bus on 42nd St., for the twelve Queens bus to come home Thursday night, I look up, I was on Sixth Ave., and I look up there, Hotel Diplomat, the back of Hotel Diplomat. I see the side and the back of- I got so emotional I started to look up the windows, because I was someplace fourteen or fifteenth floor, in the back. And this was the back and the side."

"What street was it? I know I've seen it many times."

"Broadway, or Seventh Ave. I was on 42nd street, and this was lower a drop, between 41st and 42nd. I always thought Hotel Diplomat, we were someplace 70th, 80th Street. That was in my mind that we were."

"Unless there was another one then."

"You think so? Because this looks it. It looked like it. I remember the windows from outside, those gray windows. And I think I even, like I was in the back, my room. And in the bathroom I went in, there I had my shower, this way, the building was like this, this. Even like I had a feeling where I was, in the middle of the wall, in the back, like I seen myself. My God this is thirty five years- thirty five years ago, this was the place where I was.

So they gave me a room, and I came in. On the boat you were coughing worse, you started to cough. The air was very strong again, there in middle of the ocean. You were still coughing. I got a room, and I put you to bed, you were tired. And there was no air condition. I don't know if they had air condition in hotels in those years."

"No. Nothing was air conditioned."

"And I wanted to open the windows and I couldn't open these- I was used to European windows. And I tried everything, I couldn't open the windows. I couldn't get in some air. I was horrified. What am I going to do? I was afraid to go downstairs, I'll get lost, I don't know where to come back, you know? The rooms, tremendous building, rooms, hotel! I was afraid to go out. And tired, I was very tired. I didn't sleep a few nights. I just collapsed. I lie down, I put you to sleep, and I lie down and I fell asleep.

In the evening, that was around noon time, in the evening, around eight o'clock, I heard a knock on my door. The bell rings, who's this? Mendu with his girl friend came up to visit me."

"They had come to the boat and now they came back?"

"They went away. They were there, they spoke to me, and they were around for a half an hour, and he left. And I went, they took me to the Diplomat. So then he came up, and so right away I asked him please open the window for me, and a few questions, what I want to go down, or we're going to go eat something probably. So he gave me all the instructions. Actually I had a sheet to go down the cafeteria to eat, I can eat anything downstairs.

"It was paid for?"

"They had- no. I made a mistake. They had a kitchen, in the next building, next hotel, Hotel Marseille. Hotel Marseilles they had a cafeteria."

"Next to the Diplomat?"

"No. That's where we were walking. That's why I was walking down. Now I remember why Marseilles must be uptown, because we had to walk to eat. My room was Hotel Diplomat. To eat, we had to go the Hotel Marseilles. The Joint had arrangements with them."

"But you couldn't have walked thirty blocks to go eat."

"I had to take a bus or something. But sometimes I walked. I wanted to walk. I made my sign, the map, that's 41st Street."

"They gave you a map?"

"I wrote down for myself. I made myself a chart that I'm here on 42nd, 41st Street, Hotel Diplomat. Hotel Marseilles most likely 70th, that's how I remember. Maybe I'm wrong with the street. And I had to walk, and it's the same street, so I just walked, it's very easy Manhattan. And also Mendu went down, he got me cough syrup. He bought me in the drug store cough syrup."

"Where was he living then? Brooklyn?"

"No, I think in lower Manhattan."

"On the East side?"

"Yes. The lower East Side. Eighth street or someplace. And so that night I didn't go, I still had an apple and I had some fruit from the boat, some dried rolls, and I had some eggs. I had a box what I couldn't eat there, so I accumulated some food. So that night I didn't go down to eat to the Marseilles, we ate what we had.

And I took a shower, a memorable shower. I opened up the [faucet]- you know, when you open up, it [the water] can go upstairs or down. I didn't know which one up, and it came from up, the shower, and the curtains I didn't close, so the shower was all over. I had a little water inside, more water outside, but we washed ourselves in the bathtub there. We took a wash. And somebody- and I ran out fast, and a lady, I heard a German, also refugees, German refugees, 'Some dumb people- must have been some 'tserik geblibene' (primitive) refugees, one of those eastern, must have been eastern [European]- they didn't know what they're doing. They let the shower go, and the whole shower you cannot get in, everything is wet.' But I was already safely inside when I heard that. And next day I didn't take anymore showers there already.

So in the morning it was breakfast. So we had to take, or a bus, or a train, or something. I decided I'm going to walk."

"I mean they didn't- they left these refugees all alone to go up from one hotel to another, to eat, with nobody to watch them?"

"Yes, you were on your own. You were on your own. You got to America. They got you off from the boat, and they, the Joint, again, I had to come every week to them, in their main office. They gave me a check. And if I needed a doctor, they gave me a hospital, what do you call those papers, like, there's a name for- vouchers. They gave me vouchers to the doctor, and for the dentist. And they gave me, the Joint, and they gave me money for a week. Of course I had no idea, I couldn't, I wasn't familiar the dollars and the change."

"What were you supposed to do about the language, if you didn't know the language?"

"Well, Yiddish, I spoke Yiddish. They were all over Yiddish, and I had to find someone who speaks Yiddish always. In New York they know you won't get lost. And there were refugees all over on Broadway that time, in the Hotel Diplomat. They were constantly coming, and going, coming. They stayed for a week or two in the Hotel Diplomat. If you had family, the family took you. If not the Joint had to find you a place, a room, a furnished room.

But I wasn't scared. I came to Germany alone, and I was in Prague, I was roaming around. I was used to already, I was plenty on my own alone in different countries, in different towns. I mean, I never got lost. If I got lost, I got back. I wasn't afraid, that was my big asset. I had common sense, and I had daring, and I used my brains and I was always able to manage, to get along. It was just many times difficult. Like this time.

I had change. They gave me some two dollars in some change, from the Joint, when we got off the boat. Pocket money, till my next- I had to have an appointment to go to the Joint. Let's say I came Monday or Tuesday, Thursday I had to go to the Joint. Then they should assign me a room, a place. So I had some change in my hand and I went to, down to Hotel Marseilles, to have breakfast. On the way, I seen bananas, grapes, a vegetable market. I didn't see that in the last four years or so. Germany had no fruits whatsoever. After the war food wasn't 'brite' (plentiful) there, especially they weren't an agrarian country. Eastern Europe had a lot of farms. They were industrial, and food wasn't the biggest, the best in Germany, the last few years. So I seen there- I couldn't resist not to buy two bananas, and a bunch of grapes, and some, another two fruits I bought, a bag of fruits. And I spent some money, and I had left some money, but I didn't know how much I spent and I didn't know how much I need for breakfast.

I got for breakfast in there, and they had a cafeteria. We sat down and then I see everybody's going with a tray. I went with a tray too, and I picked this, and I picked rolls, and I picked eggs, and I picked some cheese, and some Jello, I remember, for you. Sweet, you liked it."

"These, I mean, this was not a Kosher hotel, and they didn't arrange for Kosher food, did they?"

"No, I think it was kosher. A cafeteria, but it was kosher."

"You mean it was run just by the Joint?"

"It was a kosher- I know it was kosher because I seen many Jewish people were eating, with me. It was maybe just a dairy cafeteria, something, because I remember people, religious people at the table, they were all eating there. It was just breakfast, so maybe, I don't know if they ate- it was dairy. So dairy they could eat lunch too. I just remember I bought food, and I had to pay from my change. They gave you 'doos'(this) [change], and they gave you special rates. But all of a sudden I started to count the money, there wasn't enough."

"How did you know?"

"Because they said twenty cents, a nickel, and ten cents, and twenty five cents, and I had to pay seventy five cents and I seen I didn't have seventy five cents. So I picked you up, I remember, hold you by your hands, and I went out without paying. I was afraid if I won't have enough, what am I going to do? You know, I was afraid, they'll take me to the police or something, I don't pay for the food. You know this is a business, this is not the Joint. I was very much afraid. I don't know what's the law, what's the regulations there. So I figured there's one thing, I have to get out of there now, and next time make sure I have enough money, and not to let myself get side tracked by fruits, and spending money on things. I shouldn't buy nothing, just eat food, till I know what's what, just for food strictly. So that was my first day.

O.K., my papers, my sponsor was from Newark. I had to go to Newark, because New York was overcrowded. I wanted very much to stay in New York because Serenke, by that time Serenke got here, they just got there and I knew they stay in New York. They stay because they had a lot of relatives, Kurtz. Mendel Brody was here, Mendel Friedman was here, Kiralyhazer a lot. I knew people. In Newark I didn't know anybody. That's the only thing I felt like to be. I don't have relatives, at least people who I know, 'bakante, landsleit' (acquaintances, people from the same town). I tried very hard to stay in New York, but they wouldn't let me. I had to go to Newark. So that's how-"

"We got to Newark."

"My trip, my arrival to New York. They took me to Newark, the Joint they took me to Newark."

"About a week later?"

"About a week."

"So what did you do that whole week in New York?"

"I visited Serenke."

"She was in a hotel too."

"She was in a different hotel, someplace around there. There were two, three hotels, that they took in the refugees. And I was just walking around the streets where I was staying."

"What was your impression?"

"I just couldn't get enough, enough. And then I got how to go by bus to Marseilles, not to walk every day. I learned how to go by bus."

"All the meals you had at the Marseilles?"

"At the Marseilles."

"Breakfast, lunch, supper, everything?"

"Yes."

"So you were sightseeing. So what was your impression, 'takeh' (actually) of New York, after, when you first came here?"

"Overwhelming. So big. Very overwhelming. I was just walking and looking, looking up. They didn't have yet these skyscrapers what they have now. Sixth Avenue now, Judy? I get overwhelmed now with these skyscrapers! Now, when I look up, my neck hurts me when I look up! So I was just looking. I was very excited, just looking around those few days, and meeting Serenke. And I learned how to pick up the phone, how to dial, and I called up Mendel Friedman. And I called up some people who I knew there, a Kiralyhazer. I was trying to contact, people."

"Where was Mendel Friedman?"

"In Borough Park."

"When did he come?"

"Before me, about '47. He had Tante Berta, sent him papers."

"Why couldn't she send you papers?"

"Why should she? Why was she better than the others?"

"No, I'm just wondering. I mean, she sent him but not you."

"Of course, because he was her nephew. She sent for him, and she would have sent for- Irene and Edith [and Shari] was already in Australia. She sent for Irene, [Shari and] Edith papers too, but it took a long time. A year or two they had to stay [in Prague]. Rather than wait, she got the papers to Australia, she was able to get sooner there. And they were staying in Prague too long, with the family, Shari, and she had there [in Australia] a sister [Irene], a relative, so they decided to go. And Mendel waited to come to America. He preferred America."

"Why?"

"He had no children yet, and he had bigger hopes for America. So he was here.

"But she wouldn't send you papers?"

"Berta? Mendel knew that I was in Satmar, that I survived, that I'm around someplace. And I met Shari in Prague, and I sent a letter to Irene [in Australia, which she later acknowledged receiving, but which she never answered. In that letter my mother asked her to send papers to us so that we could emigrate to Australia. Irene was sick at the time and had an operation, so she says she couldn't help. However, my mother says that she sent papers for a friend of hers in Germany at that time, when my mother wrote to her.] They knew I'm around."

"And no place to go, and nobody thought of sending you [papers]?"

"No. Of course not."

"I can't believe it."

"Of course not. They just ignored, they ignored me. I mean, I would understand they ignored me, he wasn't alive anymore, I'm a stranger now. But I had a child, their nephew's [and brother's] a child. That's what I couldn't understand. When I was already in America, Berta, there was a fight, I didn't have where to go one Pesach. First Pesach Mendel Friedman and Lily invited me for Pesach. [They bought me a new spring coat that Pesach. They were buying one for their daughter Miryl, who was four years younger than I, and they bought one for me too. I remember that. I didn't see them much after that for many years.] I came. Second Pesach it wasn't possible for me to come. I guess I mentioned to you, I wasn't comfortable to be in their house. So I didn't want to come, and they didn't even invite me either, for the second Pesach. But I was hoping that Berta is going to invite me. She didn't. I was in Newark for Pesach, alone. Irka 'mit' (with) her husband was there. I mean, they didn't keep nothing, kosher even. I was very bitter that Pesach, very depressed. All alone, on Pesach."

"Serenke, where was she?"

"Serenke- she- I don't remember. She had a small apartment, you know, and she had some relatives, some other family came. Her husband's, brother's, a somebody, family that she had to have for Pesach. She didn't have the room."

"Because I know we used to go there for Shabbos, even after."

"But she couldn't take me for Pesach that time because she was full. She had her husband's family, you know. They got there that time, I remember, from Butzbach. They just got out to America, that Pesach, and they needed place for Pesach. So anyway, I had very little contact with them [the Friedman family] even when I was already in Newark, in America. They didn't want to know about me.

Well I got to Newark. And in Newark it was again very, very-" "Strange."

"No. I was very lonely. I was very depressed there because I got in, to a family, I got a furnished room, a family, the wife was disabled and crippled, and the husband, he had a pushcart, a vegetable- very common people. They were fighting."

"Jewish?"

"American Jewish, just by nationality. Lower class, and they hardly knew that they're Jewish. She spoke a little Jewish. I could communicate with them. And they, they fought a lot between themselves. At night I heard them fighting, throwing chairs."

"They had no children?"

"They had a son about nine or ten years old. And I was very scared. I used to push at night my drawers, chest of drawers to the door. And the Joint should have investigated more. You put in a person, with no language, and alone, and you know, they shouldn't have put me down there. They should have put me with a Jewish family, a half way decent family."

"I guess they had so many people, and it's hard to place so many people. It was a big job."

"Yes. I wasn't alone. So I was very, very, very lonely, and I didn't know anybody in Newark. Nobody, really nobody."

"And they weren't training you or anything, to do anything?"

"No, I just got there, just a furnished room, and on my own. Find yourself a job. Here, till you don't have a job, we'll give you money. And you'll find yourself a job and then you'll make money, then we won't give you money already. And you have a room, and I'm taken care of. They gave me money, and they got me a room, and that's it. So, go find a job.

So, I went out next day. I had kitchen privileges. There was a little store, a grocery store. I went in the grocery store to buy food, and there I met Mrs. Mirrer, a nice Jewish lady. She emigrated about twenty years before me, twenty years ago. She was already- she had her own house, a two family house, and they had a bakery. They were nice 'balabatish' Jewish people. Settled here. It's a small community, Newark, the little streets, everybody knows everybody. Somebody, a stranger comes in, they notice right away. And I was talking Yiddish, I was trying to communicate with the store, and she seen I don't- that I'm a stranger.

She came over, 'Oh, du bist a greener' (you are a newcomer, a greenhorn)? 'Yes, ich bin a greener' (I am a newcomer). 'Visoi heist de, vie voinst de?' (what's your name, where do you live?), and all the information she wants. Very sweet, very nice person.

And I said to her, 'Ich bin- ich hub a kind du, ich hub gekrigen a room, bei di und dis lady, ich voin du, un ich bin gekimmen nechten, ungekimmen (I am- I have a child here, I got a room, at this and this lady- I live here, and I came yesterday, arrived). I gave her the whole story.

And she says to me, 'Oy di bist nisht of a git platz dort'. (Oy, you're not in a good place there)."

"She knew."

"She knew. I said, 'No, zug ich, ich hub moyre. Eppes banacht krigt men sech un me klapt de chairs, haken chairs, zug ich. Ich hub zayer moyre, ich hub gepushed mahn furniture, mahn mable tzi de tir. Zug ich, 'Ich hut gevolt eppes, gain eppes andersh voinen. ('No', I said, 'I'm afraid. At night they fight and they bang chairs, break chairs.' I said, 'I'm very afraid, I pushed my furniture, my furniture to the door.' I said, 'I would like to live somewhere else.')

So she said, 'Okay. Kim ariber tzi mir, nuch mittug, in mahn hose. Ich'll dich forshtellen tzi mahn tenant who is zayer a feiner tenant, Mrs. Beim. And d'ost meeten Mrs. Beim. Zi hut auch kinder, und d'ost kimmen tzi mahn- ma mann is du, und ich hub farheirate kinder. D'ost meeten balebatisher menchen. (Okay come over to me, after noon, to my house. I'll introduce you to my tenant who is a very fine tenant, Mrs. Beim. And you'll meet Mrs. Beim, she also has children. And you'll come to my- my husband is here, and I have married children. You'll meet nicer people.') And that was like a God-send. They got me under their wings. I had where to go in, a whole day where to spend already with people, because I didn't know what to do.

A whole day I didn't have what to do. Sit in my room and lock myself in? I mean, he was away on business in daytime, but when he came home I had to lock myself in. And the daytime, what am I, you know, I was very, very bored, very lonely. So, I went over to Mrs. Mirrer. She introduced me there and she invited me for supper. We had our first good meal in America there, in a long time, you know. Chicken, and the food they had, plenty food. Cooked, good food. And next day Mrs. Beim invited me for dinner. And Mrs. Mirrer took me and she taught me how to shop. What I should buy. I didn't know the foods, the boxes, the names, what to buy. And Mrs. Beim was teaching me how to buy. Both of them. And Mrs. Beim took me to her butcher, with the car, and Mrs. Mirrer took me to the grocery, to another one, where I can buy more food for cheaper.

And Mrs. Beim took me another day to buy dishes, I should have Kosher, my own dishes. Just basic. You know I still have, I have to show you the dishes that Mrs. Beim bought me. I never threw it away. I mean, I could do without it, and I still use it. And I had aluminum 'ess zeig' (flatware). Even the aluminum 'ess zeig' I had a long time, I don't know what happened. I think Esther took it from me as a souvenir. An aluminum spoon. A regular spoon. A few basic things just, I should be able to make eggs. And I wasn't lonely anymore, because she had very nice children Mrs. Beim. Her son Norman was teaching me English, to write and read. And she had a son, thirteen year old Norman, not Norman, Mathew, Martin, something. Marty. He was playing with you, and the daughter. And they liked you and you were very bright. They were all very impressed. Then they seen that we are not 'prust' (common) people, that we are intelligent people. That I am an intelligent person and I don't belong to live there.

They thought a lot of me, they liked me. They really took me under their wing and I wasn't lonely anymore.

They got me a room by Mrs. Stein, a room, where again I wasn't lonely. Mrs. Stein, they were nice people. She had a whole apartment [to rent], and they were living, the Weinglass family, was living there already. They had the front, I had the back. So I had my room."

"And they were nicer people, also. Nice people."

"They were very nice people, the Weinglasses. Sam, exceptionally nice, and Dora. We got along very nicely, no problems with them. So thank God."

"You got on your feet."

My mother tells me that Sam Weinglass used to take me on his knee sometimes to play with me. It seems I liked him very much and when he used to take his own year and a half old son, Noach, [Norman] on his lap to play with, I tried to push him off and climb up on his knee instead. I don't remember doing that, but I do remember them and that they were very nice people.

One very vivid memory of mine from that initial time in Newark was my stay in the hospital. A couple of weeks after we arrived I was still coughing quite a bit. It got worse again on the boat, and at the clinic they didn't know what was causing the persistent coughing. I think they may have been afraid I had contracted tuberculosis.

Neither my mother nor I spoke English yet, and they put me in a room, totally alone, in isolation, for observation, for about a week. They took chest X-rays, and every day the doctors and nurses came in twice a day, and took blood from the veins in my arms. I remember I tried very hard not to cry, and as I got used to it I think I succeeded. My mother was only allowed to visit me for half an hour a day, and she couldn't even come into the room, in case I was contagious. She had to look in through a window outside the room. I couldn't speak English, I was all alone, and I had no books or toys. It was pretty awful. I was so terribly bored and uncomfortable. My mother felt even worse. I was only bored, but she was so frightened because she didn't know what was wrong, and what the outcome would be. We were not very happy that week.

Fortunately, they found nothing seriously wrong with me and they finally moved me into the pediatric ward for a few more days. That wasn't so bad already. I didn't have tuberculosis, I just had persistent bronchitis that returned every winter for many years, till I was around twelve years old.

"I wasn't already so anxious to go back to live to New York. And I went every week in to New York. I had to meet my people, my acquaintances, my friends. I got in touch with Mendel Friedman. I got his phone number. Mendel Brody got me [the phone number] through the Joint. Then Serenke got an apartment."

"So she also was being supported by the Joint."

"Yes. And I got to, I started to socialize. I joined the 'greener club.'"

"There were other 'greener' who were stationed in Newark."

"Yes. Quite a few families."

"The overflow from New York they sent to Newark 'cause they had a Jewish community."

"Yes. They had to try to settle people outside. They couldn't settle everybody in New York. It was too much for the New York Joint to handle. I registered, Mrs. Stein registered me to night school. She said you have to go to night school, to learn English. I met a lot of 'greener' there again, a lot of people. Nice, you know, young men, and young women, and married men, and single men, and intelligent people. They were lawyers, one an economist, business people. All very nice, many of them single. And they were very nice, really nice group of people. And then we used to meet them Saturday night. They made the 'greener' clubs, so with Dora and them, and there was another family, their friends, they lived on Dewey Street. And I got a group, a nice group of people who I socialized with. Very friendly, very nice. They were all very nice.

I got some money from the Joint, I wasn't able to [work]. They paid my rent, so I didn't have to worry, that was covered. And then they gave me allowance for food. And I was, you know, Mrs. Stein she was teaching me. She used to take me to the A & P to shop when she went shopping, and what I should buy, and what I should shop, and how I should cook American way. She made sure that the money should last for the week. And I started to feel good there, you know, feel nice. I liked the people around there. It was a small town. It wasn't like New York."

"Yes. Small streets, small houses, trees."

"Yes. And to meet- in the evening we used to go out in front of the house and sit down, and get together a few 'greener'. And then we went to, there was a bakery on Dewey Street. We went over to buy middle- twelve o'clock, fresh rolls we bought, and bagels, and eating, and ice cream we bought. Just talking, and trying, talking, this one knew about a job here, and trade, change information. We were all trying to get a job. I was also trying to get a job, because September was coming and you were going to go to a Yeshiva. That you're going to go to school, so I'll be able to go to work, so I was also inquiring about jobs. I'm going to go do something. I'm not going to always be on the Joint. Or even if I make a little bit less, if you make less, they still compensate you.

So meanwhile I had to try to arrange for you to school. And I met Mendel Friedman one Sunday already. He took me down to Berta [my great aunt] and Uncle Ben. Her husband was alive yet at the time. And he [Uncle Ben Greenfield] told me he has a daughter in Newark, the Schreibers. I should visit them. And I was trying to get you- then Mrs. Beim was trying- there was another lady. Mrs. Beim had a friend who was a big 'macher' (important person) in the Yeshiva there, the grade school [Hebrew Academy of Essex County]. And she was trying to register you to the Yeshiva, that I should be able to go to work. Yeshiva you would be able to go a whole day. And they gave difficulty. You know, for free they didn't want to take in. They wouldn't accept you. They'll do this, they promised, this and that, but so far they didn't accept you.

When I went to visit the Schreibers, they had a one family home, in a fancy section. They were millionaires, Judy. They were very rich, that Schreiber family. Very fancy section, very fancy home. The way she dressed, the way they, all of them. Two daughters I remember, two children. Of course we were terribly impressed. But the poor relations, I mean they couldn't bother with me socially or anything."

"Well, the relationship was so far, I mean, it was by marriage."

"And I was a little 'greener', a 'nebechel'. So I accomplished one thing, that they called. I said to them that I'm trying you to, I met this and this lady, they're trying for me to put you in the Yeshiva. I didn't know that they, you know, they were donating yearly I don't know how many thousand dollars. So it was no problem to get in the Yeshiva anymore. But I didn't know all these things. But he said Ben, maybe, you know, look up the Schreibers, visit them, maybe they can help you in some way."

"That was nice of him."

"I figured maybe a job I'll get through them, but I didn't know. So when I went down, and I said to them that my friends are trying to put you in Yeshiva, because I'm trying to get a job, and so far--. She says [Mrs. Schreiber], 'Don't worry, I'll call'em up tomorrow.'

She called them up tomorrow. I'm trying to think who was the lady who was a 'macher' in the Yeshiva, a big 'macher'. She was trying to get me in, because she was a volunteer worker for the Yeshiva. She was really trying. And Mrs. Beim got her, Mrs. Beim called up the lady, [and told her] the Schreibers are related through my husband. And she called, she went down to the Yeshiva, and they said right away, 'Yes, I should come down and register my child'. And she said to me, this lady, 'Why didn't you tell me the Schreibers are--.' I said, 'I didn't know that.' I said, 'They are 'mishpucha' (related) through my husband. She said, 'Well I seen that you,' they all said that, 'I seen that you are not a, that I am not a common person, you know, that I come from fine family.' That did it. That did it, that I come from- they said before too that they feel I'm an intelligent person, but then the stamp of approval. And not just that, I got all the 'kuved' (respect) in Yeshiva. When I came for a meeting at night for parents - teacher, I got such 'kuved' there, because once or twice I came in, Mrs. Schreiber was sitting there, and she tells me I should sit down next to her. I was sitting next to her."

"That was nice of her."

"And the teacher seen me talking to her, and I was, my status in the Yeshiva was accomplished. I had no difficulty ever."

I remember my first couple of months in school. I had come to the United States on August 7th, 1949 and I became six years old in September, so I began first grade fairly soon. I didn't speak English yet, but I guess I learned fairly quickly. But my first grade teacher didn't seem very nice to me. I remember she embarrassed me very much one day. She asked the class a simple question about the story of David and Goliath. I had never been told any bible stories, and I didn't know the answer, and I didn't raise my hand. But she called on me anyway. So I said I didn't know the answer because I had never heard the story. Well, she was so surprised, she didn't believe me. She couldn't believe I had never heard the story before. She kept insisting that I knew the answer and she made me feel terrible. I felt so out of place anyway. I was the only refugee child in the class. Refugee children were usually a couple of years younger than I was, because most of them were born after the war, so I always felt different.

"But they couldn't get you a job, or they didn't try?"

"The Schreibers never tried."

"So you really didn't have a job until you got married."

"No, I did have a [job], I did. I mean I went to work, but it was such minor jobs that I didn't tell the Joint. I was on the Joint because I was afraid to drop the Joint."

"So what kind of job did you have?"

"My first job was in a factory, they were soldering some- for television- some equipment, radio or something. I had to wrap coils, make some coils, and I don't remember exactly. But some kind of- in a factory, a job, I had some kind of work. Make, and push it in, and put it in, and do something, with Hanka. [She had a room in the apartment with us on Dewey Street, after the Weinglasses moved out. I especially remember her because once she brought some children's books home from the library and she taught me how to read.] The two of us, it was advertised in the paper, we went down, and we got the job, and we went to work. And we worked there a week or two I remember, but it was very difficult, and very complicated, and we didn't like it. It was difficult to travel, two, three busses we had to take. We gave up on that job."

"Till you got married you had no real job."

"Oh, I went to a cleaning store, part time, a few hours. A Hungarian couple. I went in to help, hand sewing. I did some hand sewing, alterations. I used to go there part time."

In night school my mother met Sol Zachar, a refugee from Poland, who had survived the war. He escaped to Russia, joined the Polish army as a non-Jew, and landed up in Siberia. He and his brother, sister-in-law, and their son, came to the United States the same year we did. They were married August 1951. February 13, 1956, my sister Esther Miriam was born.

"I had a lot of difficulty in my life. Very difficult. There were times I had nobody to talk to. I couldn't go with my problems to people, it wouldn't be right. But I still feel, that generally, that in life I accomplished, for one reason- I have beautiful grandchildren. I have 'keneine hora' six grandchildren, 'gelungene' (successful). It's another generation. I'm leaving a beautiful generation. I'm very proud of them, of my children, of you, of Esther, Chaim, and Henry 'kane hora'. I have 'Yiddishe' son-in-laws, 'Yiddishe mishpochas', (Jewish families), and the nicest grandchildren. I love'em dearly, all. I'm very proud of them. I mean, it was worth it."pe, before I came to New York. I got used to the very big aspect of the city, and by now I miss its excitement and vitality if I'm away for any length of time, but I never got used to the heat.