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My Father
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum owns the original photograph that I donated to the collection when the Museum first opened. It is a picture of me when I was around three years old. My father and I are walking across the bridge over the Nahe River in Bad Kreuznach, the town where I was born in Germany. The time is probably just before the Nazis and Hitler came into power. My father is young and handsome, wearing a double breasted pinstripe suit with a white handkerchief in his breast pocket. It looks like he has a newspaper casually folded in his jacket pocket. He is smiling and his head is slightly bent towards me. He seems to be proud walking with his little daughter garbed in her beautiful white dress, embroidered with vibrant flowers. What makes me happy now, looking at this picture, is that he is holding my hand, and that I am walking confidently into whatever is going to happen to me in the future.
Grandchildren
Six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. The immensity of this number does not reveal who these people were and does not give meaning to the lives they lived. The number will never tell the full story of what has been lost. All those people who were killed, including most of my relatives, were important. They had all been busy living lives and contributing to society. Any number of their children and grandchildren could have become great scientists, doctors, lawyers, chefs, actors, poets, writers, dancers, engineers, athletes, teachers, and so much more. The loss to humanity is incomprehensible.
Simple Things in Life
Nineteen forty-six is when I came to the United States at 17 years old. I was lucky to have my sister Ellen living in the Bronx. She immigrated to the United States in 1939 just before World War II started. In fact, she couldn’t go to the city of Mukačevo to catch a train to Prague; it was already occupied by the Hungarians, who were allied with Nazi Germany. So, she had to go through mountain roads by horse and wagon to Slovakia, where she caught a train to Prague and picked up her visa for America. Two weeks later, Germany occupied the Czech lands, including Prague. She made it to Sweden and caught a ship to the United States.
My Parents
The year is 1958. The photo portrays my mother and father looking content with life, standing on the side of the road. He is embracing her lovingly, as he will for the rest of his life. She is his rock, his friend, the person who takes care of the practical side of his life. Their personalities are different but they mesh together beautifully. My parents, brother, and I live in Wałbrzych, a medium-size city in Lower Silesia, Poland, where we settled after leaving the Soviet Gulag.
A Moment of Great Joy
After two weeks of sailing on the Atlantic Ocean, the Serpa Pinto moved deliberately towards the shore of our new destination, the United States of America. The 50 immigrant children, including my brother Joe and me, were informed that early the next morning we would be cruising past the Statue of Liberty. The instructions were that we should be at the bow of the ship, on the port side, before 6 a.m. in order to obtain a good view. We understood that this statue was the universal symbol of freedom and represented the United States itself.
The War Is Over (Or Is It Ever?)
In 1955, four years after my family's arrival in the United States from Balgium, I graduated from Garfield High School in Seattle. Although the student population was extremely diverse culturally, religiously, and racially, during my time there I felt like an outsider—even after I became fluent in English and made new friends.
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