Oral History

Meri Nowogrodzki describes fleeing from Warsaw to Vilna in December 1939

Meri and her family lived in Warsaw at the time of the German invasion of Poland. After the invasion, Meri's father fled to Vilna. She joined him there in December 1939. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940, Meri's father obtained transit visas through Japan for himself and Meri. He left for Japan first, using a false identity, and arrived there in February 1941. Meri soon followed him. In Japan, Meri and her father obtained visas to enter the United States. American relief organizations arranged their passage to San Francisco. They arrived in the United States in April 1941. Meri's mother remained in Warsaw during the war. She survived in hiding and by using false papers to avoid arrest by the Germans. She was reunited with her husband and daughter in New York after the war.

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