Emigration to the United States

Emigration to the United States

Prisoner of War

Marchiena Davis

The Lasting Effects of Wartime Imprisonment

“You could have your own freestanding home and a yard, (and) lots of food.."

“(My father) moved to Denmark. He was an engineer. My dad worked for Curtiss Wright for a government contract near Clearfield, Pennsylvania. (Their neighborhood) was just sidewalks…(a) Beaver Cleaver kind of neighborhood. We knew about (the POW experience) our whole childhood because (my mother) had some certain strange habits which are understandable. If there was any food, even a crumb left on any of our plates, she would eat it. She would hoard food if there was a sale.”

Editor’s Note: Anna and her husband, Derk, did not have a good relationship after the war. They divorced when Marchiena was a baby. Derk lived in the U.S. for a year. He believed that it would be best for the kids to live in the U.S also. But since they were divorced, Anna wasn’t allowed to come unless they were married. So Anna and Derk remarried in 1956.

1945 - 1956

Marchiena Davis Interview, 2023-02-23, Legacy Series Oral History Program, 2013-, KSU/14/05/03/001, Museum of History and Holocaust Education, Kennesaw State University.