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CHAPTER 7

The next step in our journey now began. We were going towards Germany but my mother made a few stops along the way. She had to get papers for Germany that would establish her as a Czech citizen. Meanwhile, to get to Germany she had to smuggle across various borders. First we crossed the Hungarian and Czech borders illegally. Then after several months and documents later, we crossed into Germany, also illegally.

"Mendel Wolf helped arrange- a group was going over to Hungary- first to Budapest to get out of Rumania, illegally, over the border, because I had no papers whatsoever at the time. Kiralyhaza I couldn't get papers. My old papers was Hungarian and I didn't want to go as Hungarian, because in Germany, Leibu wrote me the Czech papers are very good. To register as a displaced person on Czech papers, they have a better chance to get out. So I figured I'll get to Czechoslovakia, I'll go to Kosice, and I'll get myself papers. I'm a Friedman, and I'll get papers from the Friedman family papers.

I was going again illegally, started to go borders, with the goal to get to Germany, to a displaced, a DP camp. That was my best chance, and only chance really. Again I didn't have where to be. I didn't have money, I didn't have a home, I didn't have any earning possibility. There was no place where to work there, or something to do, or rent an apartment. It wasn't normalized yet there after the war."

"Whatever people were living on was either the Joint or 'handlen'."

"Or 'handeled', or they found some things, money after the war. I had none of them.

So I got to, I don't remember exactly the border from Rumania, over to the Hungarian side. Illegal. Matter of fact I was arrested on the Hungarian side. We got to Hungary. We were arrested."

"Again?"

"Yes."

"This time I was with you, right?"

"Yes."

"And what did you use for money now?"

"Till all this time I saved my engagement ring. It was a diamond ring, and somehow I managed not to sell that and not to get parted with that. I wanted to keep that ring and I had it till this time. But this time that was my only valuable that I could use. I had nothing else. Nachum Bear bought it from me, for very little, and so I had some money. In Hungary, luckily we were just arrested one day, and they, the Jewish 'gemeinde', got hold of us and they ransomed us out. I didn't go through Budapest at the time."

"Who else was with you?"

"A few people who were leaving Satmar. I remember one couple with a little girl about six or seven years old, Jewish, who I- in Prague we were together. In all these borders I'm going with them, with this couple. A few people, a group of people we were going.

All I remember, the town in Hungary, what was close to the Czech border, Satoraljaujhely, was the name of that town. So we were aiming for that town. And we were going to that, we got there, to Satoraljaujhely. In Satoraljaujhely we got to a Jewish family there. I remember a young man, he lived at the time there. Eventually, they all emigrated out, but that time he lived there with a niece and another part of the family. So we got to this family who had connections to border guards. We stayed overnight in their house, and he was very nice, especially to me because I was with a child. He felt sorry, he charged me very little, it didn't cost me much. He charged more the others than me. And he took us over. I still remember how we were walking the border. It was daylight, probably in the morning. I remember it very vividly how I walked the border."

"Was it a hidden place? There were no guards, or what?"

"It was paid off guards. It was made up, I didn't have to worry especially that we're going to get arrested. So we got over the Czech border. I thanked him very much because he was very nice. From the border we were going to Kosice."

"But you had no papers this time, so you could get on a train?"

"Yes. It wasn't the war already. It was 1947. They weren't checking everybody. It wasn't so strict anymore with papers. I needed papers to get to Germany, to be accepted in Germany in the DP camp, because if I want to leave Germany I need papers. I cannot come a DP and say I want to go to America. You have to register, and you have to live a certain amount of time in a DP camp. That was already all very official. So there I needed papers. In Satmar I didn't needed papers, in Budapest, in Czechoslovakia. So my goal was now to get to Kosice. In Kosice, Friedman, my name is Friedman. Irene was my age, I mean close, younger a year, a year and a half, but I can get by with her papers. So I was planning to get her papers."

"Did you know if there was anybody left from that family?"

"I knew Irene, yes. Irene was liberated then already in 1945, 46, from Switzerland. And I think she was already in Australia at the time."

"She went straight to Australia?"

"Yes."

"So she didn't come back to Kosice?"

"No. Edith with Shari went to Kosice when they were leaving Budapest. Temporary they were there, just passing by. But Irene wasn't there, because Irene was in Germany, and from Germany she went to Switzerland, and from Switzerland she went to Australia. She met her future husband there [on the transport to Switzerland] and with them she was going there. So I knew that Irene didn't take out her papers there.

"So you could get her papers? How could you get her papers?"

"Very easy. I went there and I said I'm Irene Friedman. Nothing went straight. We always figured things out, how to do it."

"So nobody was there anymore from the Friedmans?"

"Not from Friedman. Nobody came back [to Kosice]. I heard that Mendel Friedman is alive, but I didn't see him. Actually, yes, before I left Satmar, not long before, Mendel Wolf Drummer find out about Mendel Friedman, and he got in touch with him. I didn't meet him, I didn't see him, and he got from him, he brought me papers, a 'Heter' (dispensation)."

"Oh yeah? How did Mendel Friedman have a 'Heter'?"

"He had to give me- not a 'Heter'- I had to have more, because a brother is supposed to marry a widow- a shoe, he had to go to a rabbi. [Chalitzah]. I had to go through a ceremony with him, but I didn't have to be present. So Mendel Wolf the Orshover took care of that. That was yet through that year while we were in Satmar. He find out, he got me that letter from a Rabbi that he gives up--"

"When did you get proof that Meyer died?"

"From Mendel."

"From Mendel Friedman, he was in camp?"

"No, he find out in Kosice, after the war when he came back from concentration camps."

"Where was he?"

"In concentration camp. I don't remember the name, but he took care of that. Mendel Wolf got in touch with him and he said to him, probably he asked him, 'You want to marry her, and if not then give me all the papers'. So and he gave all the papers."

"Do you still have those papers?"

"I had them, because when I got married [the second time], I had to have it."

"Do you still have them?"

"I don't think so. I don't remember seeing it lately. I think I had to give it for the rabbi when I got married in Newark. But he got for me the paper that I'm free to marry. But I still needed papers from Kosice."

"You mean papers for yourself, legal papers, not religious papers."

"Yes, yes. I still needed, I still wasn't free to marry. I still needed from a 'Dayan' (judge) a 'Heter' (dispensation), what I didn't have yet at that time. What I got in, when I came to this country, in America. A 'Koshauer Dayan' (a rabbinical judge from Kosice) was in Williamsburg, and I contacted him, and I got it from him before I was getting married again.

The only thing I knew that he's alive [Mendel Friedman], and I knew Irene is alive, that she- I didn't know where she is- but I knew that she was liberated from Germany, and she's in Switzerland at the time.

And I got, we got to Kosice, with the group. In Kosice I find out there is a home for girls. I went straight to the home for girls. I said who I am, I was married to Meyer Friedman. They knew me. There was the one who was leading the place, they knew well Meyer Friedman. They knew my family, it was a very nice couple."

"So there was a girl's home there also, in Kosice? In 1947 they still had a home?"

"There were still a lot of girls who had no place where to go. They had no family and they weren't married yet, and they had no older brothers to take care. They still had a home and I got in there with no problems."

"Honestly, [laughing]."

"Honestly, and they were- and I could stay there as long as I wanted to. But of course I had a goal to go to Germany, that was no 'tachlis' (use) to stay.

There I met Shari [Halpert], my friend [to this day]. She was an older maid, she was considered that time. She was about twenty eight. I was twenty three. Twenty eight was an old maid, not married yet, she was going on twenty nine. She was a very unhappy old maid and she had a hard time to get married. At home she had older sisters, she was kept back, and she was very bitter about it. And she constantly was telling how much she would like to get married. We became very close, very friendly there. Somehow we hit it off."

"How did she survive?"

"In concentration camp. She came back from concentration camp. She was originally from Satoraljaujhely, where I came from, the border. She knew very well the guy who brought us over.

I stayed about three months in that home because I had to get papers. She was a very big help for me there because I was running for the papers. She was taking care of you and she loved you. She always loved babies, till this day she loves children."

"And she never had any." [Though she did marry in the U.S.]

"And she was telling you stories, and playing with you, and hugging you, and kissing you, and you were so much attached to her at the time. You needed it, it was important. She was teaching you songs, and I was so relaxed I could go take care of things. And then, when we were going, getting papers, what she also wanted to get away, she needed papers too. She had a sister in Brussels, she lived the war through. Before the war she was living there already, so she survived there. And she [Shari] was planning to get out there, she needed papers. To get for her Czech papers was very difficult because she didn't speak Czech, she spoke just Hungarian. Me, I spoke Czech, I had no difficulties, everything was going smoothly. It just took its time, but I got out my papers, legally, kosher. [Not really kosher, the papers were those of her sister-in-law Irene Friedman.]

"What did Shari [my aunt] do after the war?"

"She went to Prague. And from Prague to Kosice, very temporarily, they just passed- nothing there- and they stayed in Prague. They settled in Prague because from there they contacted Berta and she was making papers for them to bring them out to America."

"She was their aunt, right?"

"Yes. To come out to America. They had the chance to come out to America, and they had a chance to go out to Australia. Hadn't I been in the situation with them 'tzekriegt' (not on good terms) I could have latch on to them and go with them. But of course they didn't bother with that. I heard in Kosice that they were in Prague. From Kosice to Prague is not a big thing. I wrote to them, I let them know I'm here in Kosice. I figured times pass, two years, I forgot. I mean I don't hold grudges, what it was it was. I was ready and willing to meet them. First, I guess maybe for two reasons, first I figured they have connections with America. They have money, and money is coming to me too, the same way it's coming to them. I was hoping meanwhile to get some money, and maybe I could get some papers. And maybe they feel the same way that, bygones lets go bygones, and I tried to get together with them again. I was ready.

So I wrote to them a letter. I wrote especially to Edith, because Edith- I wasn't, I never had nothing with her. She was a young girl. We never had an argument, we never had nothing. I never had a 'broigus' (angry) with her. It was just that she stuck to Shari, of course, it's her sister. Her she took good care of. Me, I didn't count, and you. Her sister counted. So of course Edith didn't answer me nothing. I didn't get an answer. So I see I didn't get an answer that means they're not interested.

But when I got all my papers and I got ready to go- Shari [Halpert] didn't get her papers yet- she couldn't get them. I felt very sorry for her. We were very friendly and she wanted to come very much with me. To go with me, she felt so much better to go with me. She was alone too. Mentally, it would have meant a lot to be with us. And for me too, it was like with a sister to go. I wouldn't have been alone. So I left alone again."

On our way from Kosice to Germany we stopped in Prague. My mother had heard that her former sister-in law, Shari and her family were there. They were waiting for papers to get to Australia or America. They had Aunt Berta [my great aunt, my grandmother Miryl Friedman's sister] who lived in America and who could sponsor them, or her sister, my Aunt Irene was already in Australia, and she could help them get there. They decided to go to Australia because it was a shorter waiting period to get there. My Uncle Mendel elected to wait for Aunt Berta's sponsorship and he emigrated to America. I didn't hear from my three aunts in Australia till I was sixteen years old, and I didn't see them again till I was in my twenties. My uncle Mendel and Great Aunt Berta I saw a couple of times through the years.

When I was sixteen years old, my Aunt Shari's son Leibish, who was a couple of years older than I, and who with his two sisters had been in Budapest with us during the war, came to the United States on a visit from Australia. Of course I didn't remember him but he made a special effort to come and visit me, and he convinced my Uncle Mendel to bring him to my house, even though it took a long subway ride to get there. I was very grateful for the effort that he made to contact me. After that I got a couple of letters from my aunts in Australia and I met them again as they made visits to the United States in the following years. Eventually, Leibish's sister, Georgie, married and settled in the U.S., and we have been friends ever since.

While we were in Prague my mother went to visit my aunt Shari and her family, even though they hadn't answered my mother's letter, to see if they could help us get papers to emigrate, or to see if there was any money that had been found and might be forthcoming for us. Everyone was civil but no help was offered, so we left to continue our journey to Germany.

"So I had to go to Prague, anyway, so I figured, I'll be in Prague I'll look'em up. I came to Prague, I find out which hotel they are. In Kosice I found out which hotel they are in. I got to the hotel. I came there, they were nice, I mean they talked to me. I figured Shari, maybe she won't even want to talk to me. I came in, and they talked to me, and they asked me how I am, and how you are, and how we're doing, and what we're doing, and where I was, and how it was. And we talked things over. And even I brought something from Kosice, I remember, what they didn't have. And I gave them, and they gave me something, we exchanged something, but no offer of money, or no offer I should join them to America, or Irene is in Australia, I should try-. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, zero."

"What did you tell them, where you were going? You said you were trying to get to Germany?"

"I said, 'I'm trying to get to Germany'. And I said the truth, 'I have a cousin there, I'll go as displaced person, but the goal is I would like to get out someplace because Germany is not 'tachlis', and I have nobody, no place else. My sister is in Rumania yet, and I would like to get out, or to America, or to Israel, or to Canada. To anywhere, someplace.'

So I was hoping to get some offer from them but nothing was coming out. And they seen me alone, with a baby, their brother's child, without a father, a child. After all, in Yiddishin, you're supposed to help a widow with an orphan. It's a very big thing. You're supposed to help. You have to help a widow with an orphan and that's what I was at the time. Penniless and homeless, and I needed help badly. Anyway, bygones are bygones. I couldn't change them, and I got over that. I wasn't so bitter anymore you know, and that was good for me. Hatred is no good. Hatred is very bad. So I was happy that I was able to talk to them while I was there. I figured it's still your family, in future life we'll get together yet. I mean, it doesn't mean we're going to break up completely because we're still gonna be- you grow up, and you still might have to meet them, and be with them. It's not that they're total strangers, I don't see them anymore. And besides I just- that big thing- normalize things. I figure, what it was, it wasn't a normal situation. People lose their heads, they don't act rationally, you know. And I don't hold grudges. It's not my nature. I got over it. But I seen that they didn't feel that way completely. So I went my 'merry' way.

While I was in Prague, three months, I was trying to get already papers from there [to America or Canada]. I had the Czech papers, I thought maybe I'll get in Prague, while I'm there already, some more papers. Because the Czech papers was very important and I wanted to have some reinforcement papers from the Czech consul. From there I wanted to get some papers. I had just from Kosice and I didn't have a citizenship papers at the time.

So I went over to the Joint again, and they should try to help me get me some more papers. Papers were very important at the time. And they got all the informations, they inquired how I got here, where I was, my present situation, my status. And I said to them, 'I'm by myself now, and I have a little girl, a child. My papers are also as a girl, I'm not as a married person. I don't have married person paper.' And they looked me up, and looked you up, and they came up with an offer. And I asked them, could they give me some papers. Let's say, could I get already papers to America maybe, or to Canada? Then I wouldn't go to Germany. I figured maybe I could go straight someplace, emigrate to America already. What's the difference? Germany didn't pull me. I knew Leibu, and Leibu was only a stepping stone, just that I'm going there because he'll be able to get me papers further. But if I could go from Prague, I would rather go from there to America. So I was trying to see if I have any possibilities.

So they looked me up, they looked up the papers, and they came up with a proposition. [They said] it's not easy, because I have no family. There's nobody who should send for me papers. You have to have papers to go to America, that's the only way you can go. And the other way, is a way, if they'll sponsor for me- there are families who want to adopt children, very anxious to adopt Jewish children- and here you have a child who they could take easily. You could go as a sister. Somebody will adopt the child, that's what they're looking for, for young children, and you, they could get me also to be adopted, some other family. Maybe together, but that's a smaller chance, because usually young couples want to adopt a child, and a young couple wants a young child, they don't want a grown up person there, a third wheel. But maybe you'll be in contact. But the baby, she'll be adopted and you might even get paid for it. And you'll get a home too. We'll get you in, we'll get you out to America so you'll be able to be together.

If I let you have adopted, then we can go to America. They get sponsors and I said right away, no. I said, 'Look, this all I have. How can I do that?' I said. 'That's all, I mean, I have nothing more and I worked so hard to [save her].'

They didn't give up so easily. They were very, very- they were working on me. They really were working on me, because they said, 'Look this is your best chance. You have no future at the moment. You don't have where to go, you have no money, you have no family, you have nobody in America. You have nobody no place in the world. Even if you're going to emigrate somewhere, imagine you're going to go alone, with a child. You think its going to be easy? And you could make it so much easier, that I shouldn't throw away an opportunity like that. And don't give us an answer today, come back tomorrow.' Well, anyway I went home, and there I stayed. I stayed someplace there in a rooming house where the refugees stayed.

I went home, and this Rumanian couple were there, and I was telling them that story. I wasn't even crying or laughing, nothing. Just that I said, 'Listen, this is the best offer I got so far. It sounds excellent. They said I could even become a millionaire- who knows who's going to adopt us, some very rich people! What do you know? You might have a future! And you're so young, you'll marry, you'll have more children. And they were shaking their- my friends there, they were shaking their heads, 'Well it sounds very good, but I don't think so you should do it.' They said the same thing. And I said, 'No, I don't think so I'm going to do it anyway.'

Well I went back next morning, and I said, 'Listen, I am not doing it. I can not do it. If you can help me, fine, I would be very grateful. If you can't help me, I have a cousin in Germany who is working for the Joint and I have hope he'll be able to help me further- whatever is waiting for us in the future- to help me out.'

So they said, 'All right, this is not a ghetto, and you know nobody's forcing you. We thought it's a very good situation for you. But if this is- you feel so strongly about it, then we cannot talk you any more out.' So I left.

So that was yet my other situation in Prague. But it was a very- I never forgot this offer somehow, and the situation, it stayed with me. I remember it very vividly, because who knows how it would have turned out? If I would have given you to adopt, probably adoptive parents, they don't want to, the mother they want to completely, the mother should disappear. They don't want to have contact. They want to make the child their own. And I would have no connection to work, or fight, that I wanna have back, or whatever. So I could have been separated completely. I have a feeling that would have been the situation. It wouldn't have been the rosy situation that we would have been very rich, and I would have become rich. I would have lost you forever. And in my whole life would I be happy? A mother gives away her child and all your life to think what happened to the child. Is she all right, isn't she all right? I feel I did the right decision. It could be it would have been better for you. Maybe you would be rich today or something. I don't know."

"That's not everything."

"It's not everything. Or maybe you wouldn't have been adopted by religious people. Who knows? I wanted to have a religious- deep in my heart I knew I want to have a Jewish generation, the future generation."

When my mother realized that there was no hope of emigrating out of Czechoslovakia to America, Canada or Australia, she continued on her way to Germany. At least now she had Czech citizenship papers and that would allow us to stay in Germany as displaced persons. Leibu had told her that she would need these papers establishing that we had been in Germany by 1947 to qualify for admittance to a DP camp. And from the German DP camps there was a chance to get out to other countries as a refugee, a displaced person.

It was everyone's dream to get to America, Canada, or somewhere far away from war torn Europe. After 1948, when Israel became a state, some people went there. First choice though, for most people, was America, if they could get there. But that was a difficult goal to achieve if you didn't have family there to sponsor you. So we left Prague and continued on our way to Germany.

"There was one couple who I was leaving from Satmar together. We were arrested together on the Hungarian border together, all the way to Prague. The names I can't remember. Nice couple, a nice Satmerer, Yiddish couple, our type. They know Heisler is my cousin and I told them that I had money with his father. So they said, 'You better try to get in contact with Heisler, with the son, maybe he can help you.' I met him. He was very nice, and I said openly, 'I could use some money, and as far as I know, my parents gave a lot of money to your mother and your sister in Satmar. And if you could help me out now, I would appreciate it very much now. I'm alone with a child now.' So he said he doesn't have much money. He gets a few dollars here and there from his father. He'll give me forty dollars, that's all he can give me. He didn't have to give me that either because I had no dealings with him. I never gave him money. I had no proof that my parents gave him money. So it was his free will. That was nice of him."

"Where was this, in Prague?"

"Prague. He was trying to get to America, to get to his father in America."

"And your mother had left, supposedly your parents had left money with his parents?"

"His parents lived in Satmar, his mother. His father was in America. His mother was my mother's first cousin. Our grandmothers were sisters. And during the war they couldn't send money to Satmar from America because they were on a war footing. So they lived from the money what the husband used to send. My mother had a lot of money at the time. They were making business, so she was giving the money, and after the war, they'll pay back.

The forty dollars came very handy because I had to cross another border, to buy myself legal. I had already Czech papers, but I had no visas, no passport, I had no traveling papers. All I had was the papers that I was a Czech citizen what I needed- it was very important for me in Germany, Leibu let me know that. So that I had."

"Did you have to pay for that, or that you got legally?"

"No I got that legally, for free. I had no difficulty whatsoever. I spoke Czech. I came there, the age was right, he didn't question me."

"You didn't need some sort of birth certificate or anything?"

"No, I said, I was born here. I gave Irene's birth date. I took her birth certificate and with the birth certificate I took out other papers, citizenship papers. And I got everything legal, from scratch up, Irene Friedman."

"Did Shari know you were using Irene's?"

"No. In Prague I told her. And you, I had no papers for you. So you, I had a boyfriend, illegally. I had in Budapest already, that I was a fallen girl. I have a child. I got a child. In between I had a boyfriend. So I was still traveling like a girl with a child, yet, still.

But the forty dollars what I got was now like, now like at least five hundred dollars now. During the war, in that time, forty dollars, it was a fortune. So it was very nice of him that he gave it to me and it carried me all through the border.

I had to go through Marienbad, Carlsbad, travel from Prague Sudeten through. And then in Marienbad to arrange border crossing. I don't remember the name, there was from Kiralyhaza [a woman] who lived there, and she helped me to arrange the papers. They knew very well my father, and she says to me, 'You know, I knew your father very well. I don't think so you knew him like I knew him. He was one of the nicest people I ever met, [anywhere] or in Kiralyhaza. As a father to you he was something else, but to the people who knew him, he was something else again.' And I stayed in her house overnight. She was very nice to me. It was very nice to meet somebody who knew me, and she arranged for us to get over.

This was the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany. And the name, it was such a famous border crossing, and I don't-, no name I can remember. I just remember the route I followed. So I got, we got over the border, the Czech-German border, not any difficulty, but not legally. It was a side post, we didn't go the main border crossing, the side, between someplace there it was an opening and we knew."

"Were there wires between the borders, barbed wires? You could go just anywhere?"

"No! There were border guards all over. But there was a place where there was bribed, the border guard was bribed. We got there and he let us through, and we got on the German side. On the German side we got again a place, again a Kiralyhazer was living there, somebody who knew my brother very well. He was a yeshiva boy with my brother together. And he had family in America, he was planning to go to America. So we stayed in his house, two or three days, till we organized again how to get to near Frankfurt. I was planning to go to Frankfurt because Leibu was there and he said he has friends, family."

"So once you were in Germany, you didn't need anymore visas or passports."

"No. No. It was a lot of immigrants there."

"You were allowed to be there with the Czech citizenship papers."

"Yes. Yes. So I didn't have to worry for my safety anymore. I just had to travel, you know, to travel with a child alone. You were never too well. You had diarrhea on and off, the food didn't agree with you, and here I had food, here I didn't have food, here we were hungry, here we had food, you know. It wasn't a normal traveling. From Satmar to Germany, again, it was a very- it took me months, and money I didn't have much. The situations, someplace we got food, someplace we couldn't get food. Someplace we had where to stay over, sometimes we had to find and look till we got where to stay overnight. It wasn't traveling like you travel today. In case you wonder sometimes, why I am not big on traveling, it doesn't tempt me. On the contrary, I have a big dislike for traveling- I came to a conclusion that time, as I told you I guess already in the past that. When I was young, I wanted to travel very much, see the world. I realized one thing, that all over I see trees, and the sky, and the earth. It's all over the same basically. It's just what's important is to have a roof over your head and have what to eat. So traveling, I got cured of traveling.

I finally got to Frankfurt."

We left Satmar the end of April 1947, and we reached Frankfurt Am Main, Germany, in the middle of that summer.