Crossing the Atlantic
Text
Dublin Core
Title
Crossing the Atlantic
Subject
Holocaust Survivors
Creator
Andre Kessler
Curatescape Story Item Type Metadata
Subtitle
En Route to the United States
Lede
"I had my first taste of freedom."
Story
"On August 7, 1951, we boarded a very small former troop ship, which used to bring troops from the United States to Europe, the S.S. General Sturgis. When we boarded the ship, at eleven years old I was a pretty big kid, and they decided that I didn’t belong with the women. They had a women’s section and a men’s section. They put me in with the men. As an eleven-year-old child it was very traumatic, because it was the first time in my life I was separated from my mother. Then I discovered that food was plentiful aboard ship. I could eat as much as I wanted to when I wanted to. Since my mother spent the ten days it took to cross in her bunk because she was terribly sea sick, I had my first taste of freedom. I roamed the ship. A very nice gentleman agreed to take care of me, but he was doing things the men aboard ship did-- play cards and things like that. I was always hanging over the side. They had very low railings, and they were afraid I was going to fall overboard."
Factoid
1951
Files
