All Stories: 590
Stories
Arriving in America
“We landed in New York City, August the 17th, 1951. We did not come through Ellis Island. We landed on the Hudson River in New York. My mother’s brother Emory was there to pick us up along with my cousin Marty. My first recollection of the United…
Crossing into Hungary
"When my mother and I got to the Romanian-Hungarian border and these people saw that I was an eight-year-old boy they panicked. They were afraid that I would make a noise and give them away. In addition to what my father had paid them-- there…
Growing up in Romania
“The earliest memories were good ones. Even though Romania was part of the allies of Nazi Germany, and they followed the Nuremburg laws, up until December 1942, when my father was arrested, we had a fairly decent life. Of course they had confiscated…
Speaking to children
“We have a common obligation to make this a better world for the privilege of living on this earth, of living in this world. And we gotta work at it to do that. We gotta make things happen to make this a better world. We gotta serve the…
Return to Germany
"Two days after I arrived there, the war was over. Everybody cried—everybody cheered, and I cried on this day. Everybody was cheering, and I cried, because I couldn’t fight the Nazis, and I…Did so much damage to my family and my friends and my…
Joining the Military
"The day I was eighteen, I was inducted into the military. And I actually became a citizen afterwards, in the military, in a place outside of Jacksonville, Florida, I was sworn into the—as an American citizen. I stayed in the military through…
Settling in Alabama
"when we went to England, the only thing we could take with us was the equivalent of about ten dollars each, one ring and one watch…each. If we had—I mean, we were children. I had—I think—I didn’t have no rings, but I had a watch. So we came…
Coming to America
"We were able to leave there one year later, in April 1940, because our visa became valid, and were able to come to America and started life from the beginning in America.”
“When he first came to America, we came across New York, and we were…
England
“In England, my mother and father lived in one room, my brother was able to get a job learning a trade, and room and board that way, and I was in a refugee boarding school run by the B’nai, B’rith organization…and went to public school from that and…
Buchenwald
“My father actually came back three weeks later, I happened to open the door and I didn’t recognize him at first. His hair had turned white, he had lost thirty pounds in three weeks. He had been subject to unspeakable abuse. Yes, he was taken…