Chapter9

"The wharf, the pier, in the ocean, I couldn't imagine. I mean I heard, I read in books, you know, in romances, very many. I was always fascinated with the ocean and I read a lot in books; they went on a cruise, or some of these English novels with the ships, and the ocean below, and the waves. I knew everything, I thought I knew everything about oceans, but I never seen one. I thought I know how an ocean looks, but when I seen one, I got nauseous. I got so overwhelmed and I got so like frightened. I'm going to go on this big water? How can I go on such water? It's big! How can a person go in water? But there wasn't much time."

"So this was Tuesday? Wednesday you were already in Bremen Haven."

"Monday morning."

"Monday morning you got the telegram. Tuesday morning you went to Butzbach, at nine o'clock in the morning. Wednesday you were already in Bremen Haven. You went by train from Butzbach to Bremen Haven?"

"By bus. We were taken by army busses."

"Was that in the morning, the next morning?"

"Next morning. And we were transported, with American Army transport ships, boats were taking us to America. The name of the boat, I seen right away the sign, 'General McRea'. The date was, I don't remember the date. I remember the date when I arrived to America. It was August 7th [1949], so it must- ten or eleven days was the trip."

"It was the end of July."

"I have to figure it out, the date I left Bremen Haven. But what I remember mostly about Bremen Haven, about the boat, the ship was very big. An army boat. Tremendous big, troop ship. And it wasn't to go up- like I went boat rides, or I go to a boat. I remember you go up on a boat with a plank, like in Eilat, a plank, and then they let down a --"

"Steps."

"You go in. Here we had to go on rope."

"Really? You had to climb up a rope ladder?"

"A rope ladder, with little pieces like."

"Oh my God!"

"You know, pieces like a flap, and rope, and you had to hold on."

"With your suitcases?"

"Two suitcases and a baby."

"You were supposed to carry me?"

"Yes. You had no transport, there was no [help]."

"Nobody was helping any?"

"Everybody had their own family. So here I had a problem how to get up on the boat. I was afraid even by myself to go up on a boat like that, just to hold on. So finally I had no choice. Everybody was busy, everybody was going, there was nobody to help me. So I decided I have to do it and I just won't look down. I just made up I'm just going to look always on one step, and up, not down the water. And I took one suitcase one hand, and with one suitcase, holding on, and going up the ladder."

"So you were holding on to the ladder and another suitcase at the same time?"

"Yes, I don't know how."

"How did you do it?"

"Luckily, I got rid of a lot. I didn't have- I knew it- I cannot carry a lot."

"So they weren't heavy or big suitcases."

"No. They weren't big and they weren't heavy. I knew it I'm alone, and I have a child, and I didn't fool myself. And I said, 'What am I 'shlep shmates' (shlep rags) to America? I'm sure I'll have what to wear in America'. And I got rid almost everything. I had very minimum, really minimum, what I was able to carry alone. And holding on, with the suitcase, holding on, and I got up. And I made two trips with the two little suitcases, and then I went up with you."

"So you actually carried me up, I couldn't climb up myself?"

"No, no, no, no. You were climbing up."

"And you were behind me."

"And I was behind you. I was holding you."

"I don't remember climbing up. I remember just looking down from the pier and seeing this deep dark water."

"No, I was holding on. I was holding on to you and we walked up very slowly. Finally, we got up."

"I wonder why [I don't remember] because I was old enough to remember by now."

"You don't remember? And that was the most vivid memory from [the trip for me]."

"You know what? It probably didn't scare me. I remember the boat didn't scare me, the water didn't scare me."

"No, you had a good time there."

"Yeah, I wasn't sick. I have a feeling the rope didn't scare me maybe. I was never afraid of things, I was more afraid of people."

"Yes. In Butzbach I met a group of German Jewish nurses. One was a doctor, and three nurses, four friends. They kept together. In the bus going to Bremen Haven, from Butzbach already, I sat with them. Of course they got a liking to you right away. You were very cute and very smart. And they were talking, and they were- they loved you, so it was very good for me. I stuck with them, and they were with me, they were very nice to me at the same time. You know, they see I'm alone and with a child, and they were nurses. They were very capable.

The doctor was around forty years old, so I remember, because she was very worried. What is she going to start a new life in America? Forty years she was. I was twenty five and she was forty. At that time she was an old woman, and I felt sorry for her. She has to start a life at forty in a new place- at least I'm twenty five, that was going for me.

Then I stayed with them. So when I had to go up the ladder, you were with them downstairs. When we got up I stayed in the same bunk on the ship."

"You could pick your own? Did they assign you or you took a bunk?"

"No, there were bunks and we arranged, we could stay with whom we wanted."

"So when you got to Bremen Haven, you didn't stay in Bremen Haven. We just came by bus and you got straight on the ship."

"They were straight transferring."

I have a few memories and impressions of Bremen Haven. I remember the wooden pier and the deep, dark water. It looked very murky, and dark green. The ship looked so tall, I could hardly see the top when I stood next to it. I remember being very hungry while waiting to get on the boat. We were in some sort of large shed or warehouse and I was very hungry. That in itself was very unusual because I was a very poor eater and was rarely hungry. My mother had brought along some hard boiled eggs and she gave me one, with some salt. It tasted so wonderful. I was so surprised! I had never eaten an egg that tasted so good. Till this day I don't think a plain hard boiled egg with salt has ever tasted so good to me again.

"So we got up on the bunks, two or three bunks, I remember. Above me was another, right next to me, my bunk, was a Russian or Polish Jewish lady, also with a child. The child was very spoiled, cranky, cried a lot. And the nurses were in that one room. The four nurses, and a Russian lady with a baby, and I, we were in one room- or even some more people. They were big rooms. They were like, you know, for soldiers, for group people."

"Like a dormitory."

"Like a dormitory. They weren't little individual, private cabins. No. But I stuck with these people. I was close, right next to them. And they couldn't get over, these nurses and this doctor, how well behaved you were. How mature as a baby, how mature you were. How you cooperated with me. How you listened to me. I was sick. I got sick right away, from zero hour. The minute I just looked out, and the boat was shaking, I was already sick. You know, I could never go on a swing."

"I know. That never bothered me."

"I didn't go to the window even, because I knew it, I couldn't look. And the waves were strong, you know, at the ocean the waves are- and the boat was rocking already. I was finished. And you were so understanding as a child. You didn't bother me. You weren't cranky, like that baby was crying. She was about your age but she was such a pest to her mother. And you were so well behaved, you know, that they couldn't get over that. And they really took care of you. They played with you, they were singing songs for you, and they were shaking you on their knee."

"Where were they during the war?"

"Germany. In concentration camps. They survived the concentration camp. They were survivors. They had you on their knee and playing with you. You had a good time with them. And the people had to clean the boat. They had to wash the floors, they had to make up beds, they had to wash the basins, and everybody had to work."

"I assume the men and women were separated? Families?"

"As families. This woman had a husband, but she was separated. During the daytime they got together but the dormitory not. So I couldn't wash floors, I could do nothing. I was out of commission completely.

The first day or so I went with you in the dining room, to feed you. I thought I'll be able to. I won't eat, I couldn't eat nothing. I was drinking something, that's all I was able, tea, to drink something, or zwieback, the dry zwieback they gave me. And I thought I'm going to feed you. And I went to the table with these nurses, the doctor, and I sat down. And I seen ketchup, a jar on the table, and it looked like blood to me. And frankfurters they were serving, and the smell of the cabbage, and frankfurters, and seeing the ketchup, I felt I'm throwing up right away. I ran out and I left you there. And from that day on you were eating with them."

"They weren't seasick, none of them?"

"No. None of them. I think one didn't feel so good, but not like me. I was really sick. One of them didn't feel so good, but she was able to manage. So they took you to eat every day. You ate with them, and they played with you. I had no difficulty. And believe me it would have been very difficult if I wouldn't have some help because I couldn't- I was sick! I was nauseous day and night, and throwing up, not just nauseous. And I remember I went to the doctor on the ship."

"There was nothing they could give you?"

"There was nothing. They didn't give you nothing. And I couldn't speak English, and they couldn't speak German, and I couldn't talk to them. And the English sounded so strange to me, you know, like, I felt like they have a hot potato in their mouth, wah wah wah wah. All I could get out was okay, okay. That's the one word I learned on the ship. And I remember the soldiers on the ship, they were always painting something on the ship. They were an army."

"I mean it was still being run by the army? It was an army boat, an army ship? The crew were soldiers?"

"The crew was from the army. A ship from the army."

"And they were maybe the navy- you don't know?"

"That I'm not sure. But they were constantly painting, I remember, the outside, the rails, and the chimneys, and the walls. And I heard them talking, I was trying to learn a little English. I was watching them, listening to them, and all I hear just was one sound. And okay, okay, okay. And the doctor couldn't do nothing for me. I didn't go back there and I seen it's hopeless. I just have to stick it out.

And meanwhile, we still, one thing we still had to do on board, go with our papers to the main office there on the boat. They were still processing papers. They were getting us ready for immigration when we're going to land in New York. I don't think so we landed on Ellis Island."

"No, I don't remember."

"No, because we landed in Manhattan someplace."

"Yeah. I remember. That I remember. I remember getting off the boat. I remember being in some sort of, inside a big, huge hall. Tremendous."

"So they were processing already our papers, getting it ready, should be less work in the thing. Because I remember one thing, I said 'Oh dear God! When am I- just to get to America and to stop going with papers, to take care of papers, important papers. Oh, that's going to be a big revolution for me already. It's going to be so much- life is going to be already nicer if I'll be a place, and I won't have to wait papers, to go no place with papers."

"No ID card. Once you were in America, you didn't even need an ID card. JUDY

"Nothing. I mean I didn't know what I need."

"Did they give you passports?"

"No. Green papers we got. We got a green card. They made us already, on the boat, the green card. You know what the green card is?

"A green card is to allow you to work in the United States."

"That's before citizenship papers. They give you permission to live, [in the United States], that's a green card. That paper they were already processing on the boat. When we got down we had it in our hands already. So we had to stay in lines for all these things always, because there were hundreds of people there, you know. Everything was, nothing was- so that took days. Every few days you have to go again for papers. And just the thought, in America, I didn't know what papers you need, but one thing I knew, I'm not going to go no place. I'm not going to travel. I'm not going to go to another country, so I won't need papers. Since 1943 I was constantly with the papers, making papers, having papers, looking for papers, throw away the old papers, making new papers. I constantly needed papers. Different names, different locations, different countries. In Rumania, in Hungary, I needed papers. In Europe you need papers. You are not a human being without papers. You must have, you're arrested, you get lost, if you have no papers.

So, yeh, about that Lithuanian. On the boat, walking one day to the papers or from the papers, back to my bunk, who do I see? This Lithuanian man leaving for America. And I see him and I went over to him and I said, I didn't say that somebody took care of it, I just said to him, 'You see, I'm going to America'. He looked at me, and he turned away, he didn't say nothing. And I noticed him again. I avoided, even if I seen him, I avoided him. I was afraid of him. But I just had to show him that I'm here.

"Was he a young man, a middle aged man, an old man?"

"No. Not old. They weren't old."

"Why were the Lithuanians getting out? From Russia?"

"They were DPs too from Russia. They run away because it became Communist, so they run away. Like the Czechs run away, they run away too. But they collaborated with the Nazis, while they were there, many of them. And when they made their papers they didn't put down how many hundreds of Jews they killed. And not just Jews, Lithuanians too some, who didn't collaborate, or, they sent away some of those too, but mostly Jews. And quite a few of them came to this country on false pretense. But that guy I seen, I had my satisfaction to show him I'm here.

Coming on the boat to this country, closer to America, you know, I was very excited. Everybody was wondering what life brings. It's a new page in life. You start really completely- to me America was so unimaginable. I couldn't imagine how- it was like a different planet. I didn't feel like I'm going to a different country. In Europe, from one country to the other is a different- here, over the ocean, and America, when you talked about America, we were dreaming about America. To get to America was a dream. And many times to me it was an unattainable dream because I had no possibilities, no family, or any possibility to come here. You couldn't get here any other way."

"So this German Jewish lawyer, she had gotten you a sponsor through the Joint from Newark."

"The Joint had sponsorships for people who didn't have families. She got me a paper, a family, a Jewish family who said that they sponsor. They had no responsibility. The Joint took the responsibility. They don't have nothing [to do]. They have a business they had to have, or something they'll give me a job. Something like that. That's all they had to do. And the Joint got these from people. People were doing that for the refugees.

So I was very, you know, sometimes I was frightened, what life brings me here in America. What's going to be? After all, I had my life ahead of me yet, I was young. I had nobody, nothing, what's going to be? I was frightened what's going to be. How am I going to be able to manage? How am I going to make a living? What am I going to do? I don't know the language. You know, I was terrified, and I was excited, and I was hopeful. I was up and down one day, next day down. But these nurses, somehow, God always helped me, somebody, I always had somebody to talk to, somebody to get acquainted, to get friendly with me. And they liked me, I was able to make friends easily. Like Feigi said to me always, that I was always able to make friends that I was close with somehow, that they liked me, that they were good to me. So all through these years I was able to have people somehow. I was able to get to people. And so these nurses, they were around me, and I was with them, and we were talking.

Basically, I'm an optimist, I had hope. I had a feeling of hope always. When I got down, I got back fast. I was never that I was very worried, or very depressed. Never too long. It came over me, and then my optimism took over, and I seen everything with excitement, with expectation. You know, it's like a challenge, and adventure, challenge, excitement. And I got sometimes carried over, something new, something good, you know something good might happen. It's America, it's that rich country, it's that good country, it's- gold is on the street. I just couldn't imagine what kind of a country. I didn't imagine that it's just trees and ground, that it's just a land like Europe. I had such a fantasy about America that I just couldn't imagine it how it looks. And the buildings and the houses, that everything is going to be so different, like I would now go to the out of space. Yes, like I would go to out of space. I don't know why was it so strange to me. Because I was never far. I never traveled much. I was just in Europe. I was familiar in Europe- but anything else- and nobody ever traveled much in my crowd."

"Actually, till the war, you really were just a small town girl, and Kosice was the big city for you."

"Yes, even to Kosice I was nervous. I was once in Budapest, I was sixteen years old already. It was my first big city I ever went to."

"You were a small town girl."

"Yes, everything was a fantasy, imagination. Even a big city I got overwhelmed. I always dreamt to live in a big city. That was my- when you live in a small town you think the beautiful life is in a big city. Well I got to a big city, but I never bargained for such a big city [New York]. It got a little too big.

So when we were coming closer, we knew we have a day, or two days to come to New York already, and two days, and one day, I couldn't sleep anymore then. We started to see the lights from- more light already, little lights like stars. And the weather. Before, it was very beautiful, cool. All of a sudden, on the boat, I was in two sweaters and dressed up, and I was always cold. All of a sudden I start to feel warm, all of a sudden I start to perspire. I was never in a climate like that."

"Yeah. That I remember. Neither was I."

"I was hit with something that I couldn't- "

"It was like walking into an oven, I remember, a steam bath."

"A regular sauna. And that was already about a day from New York. I remember night, we were coming close to the shore someplace, two three miles away from the shore, that we seen already the skyline."

That must have been exciting!"

"Very, very exciting. And at night we seen just lights, lights, lights, millions of lights."

"That I didn't see. I must have been sleeping."

"And the heat, and the steam, and we were sitting all outside. We couldn't sit inside anymore, sitting on the decks. And I got- what is this? And I didn't have who to ask, who to talk, who should explain to me. So I just thought something, something- because this is a weather that you don't have in Europe- specially in central Europe. Maybe Italy and the Mediterranean, down south they have hot weather, hot, but I don't know if they have this humidity. Maybe they have humidity, but I never seen it. I never experienced it. It was very temperate, more cold than hot. Winter, cold. Spring was more colder. Summer wasn't so long. It was more the colder season. So I had to get used to this. And it was very difficult because I wasn't well, I was run down. And we came to- the closer we got the worse it got. It was a heat wave."

"I remember."

"We got off the boat. I had the hardest time. I schlepped myself and the suitcases. I should have taken those suitcases and thrown them over there, and not schlep'em any more, because I was so sick of schlepping. I was all those years schlepping suitcases. Because, you know, usually the women, families there, young families, they had children, they had a husband."

"They were schlepping suitcases and she was schlepping the children."

"Yes. But here I was schlepping everything. And we got to the pier, and it was in the morning already, and unbelievably hot. It lasted about a week or two that time. It was the middle of the heat wave."

"It's not always like that."

"No."

"We could have come on a normal day."

I'll never forget my first impression of New York, very hot and very big. I never got used to the heat and humidity. I have always dreaded the coming of summer. I like the fall and winter. Spring, I don't like already, it's either cold, or suddenly it gets hot and summer is on its way. I don't remember ever being uncomfortably hot in Europe.