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February 3, 2008 - Part 6 of 6

Section below transcribed by Matthew G (2010)
Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.

How did you decide to come to America instead of Palestine because I remember in your book you were choosing between?

OK. I can tell you that. That wasn't really my decision, I guess it was my decision. While I was working for the American battalion doing KP, peeling potatoes and washing pots and pans, I went to school and learned to be a machinist. When I got my credential as a machinist. I went to school again, a night school after work everyday and learned to be a mechanic so I had two credentials. I would come to this country I would have a job, because in Europe you don't go say I want a job, you go to a place if you want a job, what can you do. He say I can do everything, what does it mean. It means that you can do nothing, you want me to train you. I'm gonna train you for three years then you go to somebody else who will pay you fifty cents an hour more. I don't want that. I want you to know what you are doing before I hire you. What was the question again?

While I was there all this time took about a year. I was trying to make contact with relatives I had with overseas. I had two uncles in Israel, I never knew them but my mother told me I had two uncles, I knew what their names were. I had an uncle in Argentina, and an Aunt in Sweden, and I had an uncle in America, they came in the 1920's. They all traveled together away from such a poor country, very poor in Poland. There was a famine there really, I didn't know it. Mark ????? came over here and then he brought his wife, and had a child, and had another child here. This is what men used to do they used to go over, find a job, save up some money. The Italians used to do the same thing. While I was waiting, I made contact with my uncle in America, and he agreed to sponsor me and my father to come over to this country. He had to sign that we wouldn't go on welfare or collect unemployment and all kinds of stuff like that. We were waiting for a visa. You're not gonna believe this either. One day a truck drives up while we were working. He says anybody that wants to go to Israel jump on. That day I got a letter from America that my visa is here, I can pick up a ship in Bramenhaufen and go to America. I had to make the decision. It didn't take me long to make the decision. It wasn't easy to go to Israel. The British government would not allow people to come there, so when a ship went to Israel they put them on an Island in a concentration camp on Cyprus. There is a movie about it I think it's called, "Exodus." There is a song called Exodus about the people that were imprisoned. They used to come during the night and try to reach the shore, the British used to try to round them up and send them back. To come to America was just a five day passage across the Atlantic. That's why I chose.

Do you remember what day it was that you got your visa?

Oh gosh. My father's not alive anymore, he would remember.

What time of the year was it?

Well I'll tell you what I can tell you. I was freed in 1945 of May. I can find out from my wife. I came here in December of 1946, so somewhere before.

You sailed back out from Germany. Can you tell us anything about what you saw what was post Germany like after the war?.

After the war, Germany was all bombed out it was just like rubble. I remember there was some Germans in various places but I was mostly with Americans, I couldn't speak English but I was with Americans. When I got on the ship, I kept looking at the continent, the further I got away from it I said to myself, "I hope I never see the continent again. Three days later there was a huge storm in the English Channel. The ship turned around. About a day later the storm passed and we were able to come to America. When I saw the Statue of Liberty it made me cry.

When you got to America, you were with your father and Lona. What was that like?

She was a cousin that attached herself, she was a second cousin. She wanted to marry my father. She drag along with us.

Did you ever feel replaced by her?

A man picked us up in New York at the ship. He was a boyfriend of my mother, he wanted to marry my mother but my mother married my father. He had no children, we went to his apartment, a beautiful apartment on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. He had a hotel, it wasn't an expensive hotel. Everyday he would go to collect his money for the hotel and I would go with him. He had a whole bunch of dollar bills everything was dollar bills. I remember we stopped by the coffee shop, and they wanted to know if I wanted something, I said I just want a cup of tea. They start pouring in the tea and I said I want a half a cup of tea. He said to me why do you want a half a cup, because I don't want to waste the water, or the sugar, didn't want to waste it. He and his wife wanted to adopt me, I was sixteen years old. I could stay with them, go to school, get and education, and my cousin Lona wanted to get rid of me. She talked me father into having me stay there. My father said to me, Hirschel", if you stay here you will have an education, a home, and enough to eat. I don't know what I can give you, I don't know where I'm going." Took me a second I said dad I want to go with you. I was a bone in her throat ever since

Are you glad that you went with your father?

Positively. As a matter of fact my half sister called about a year ago maybe less - she lives in Los Angeles she is an attorney- she wanted to meet with me. I said if you want to come up. They were in San Francisco and I thought they would come down to see me OK, but she wanted me to drive up to San Francisco to have lunch with them. I should drive, I'm older than her by eighteen years, I should drive to San Francisco two hours and two hours coming back so she could buy me lunch. I said if you are ever in Salinas or in the area you can come. She said but I don't have a car, well for wealthy lawyers to get a car no problem in San Francisco and drive down to Salinas so she was very upset. She was talking her mother is no good, she doesn't like her mother, her mother is not good to her or her two daughters. She's hanging on to all of her money she's not giving her anything. Nothing I can do about it. She read my book too, and her mother read my book. They never contacted me on that. I knew her when I lived in Los Angeles but when she went to Jewel????? University and made the big parties and never did anything for me. I divorced myself from them, but I still have my father. My father said to me, "Harold don't worry, I have a lot of money, half of it I'm leaving to my wife, and half of it I'm leaving to you and your half sister." I said dad, "I don't need any money I'm doing OK. If you want to leave some, leave it to your grandchildren and my two sons, they were small then. Six weeks before he died [Lona] made him change his will to leave everything to her, and not even to her daughter. I was shocked but he was incoherent, he had heart problems, he had kidney failure, he was on medicine and there is nothing I can do, but Luckily god is on my side. We're doing well, I have two sons, they both graduated college, one is an attorney, one is a very successful insurance broker, and we have grandchildren and they are fine, we got everything, we got a good life in America.

Have you returned to Germany?

Many years ago, when my children were teenagers I said I want to take them to Germany I want to show them what I've been through. Joyce says no, I don't want to go there, I don't like the German people and what they did to you and your family I don't want to go. I said well I'm going if you don't want to go OK. Im going to take the children. She said well if you take the children I'm not going to be left alone I'll go with you. I went ahead and bought a Volkswagen camper bus and we flew over there on a charter plane which was very inexpensive. I picked up the camper bus, on the Autobahn and we began touring Germany, we went to nine countries and spent six weeks all over Europe. The kids now say that was the best vacation they ever had because they learned so much. We didn't know where we were going, we didn't know where we were, we worked with a map, we stayed in hotels, we camped and ate just bread and cheese, occasionally we stayed in a bed and breakfast. I took them to Dachau, I showed them the crematorium's, I showed them the gas chambers. We met a German in Trier Germany which is right by Luxembourg who showed us the Porta Nigra i think it's called, it's a big old Roman ruins.Took us through his home, gave us food, gave us wine, even paid us to go through it, he was very nice. He was not a Nazi, so then we learned not to hate all the Germans, just the Nazis.

What I speak about in schools, my wife drives a Volkswagen car, she goes to a Hindu doctor, my doctor is Palestinian, we're international. We don't want the German people for blaming us for bringing them over here as slaves I didn't do it. I don't want the Christians blaming me for killing Christ. I didn't do it and neither did the Jewish people didn't do it. Therefore I shouldn't blame the German generation for the atrocities that are imposed by their predecessors.

This medal was given to me when I gave a presentation at the Presidio of Monterey language school to 400 soldiers, at the conclusion the commanding officer Colonel gave me this medal, shook my hand, and he said that this medal is the highest medal that the Defense Department can give to a civilian for excellent service to the community.

When was this?

Just a few months ago. The other side has the US Army, NAVY, Department of Defense.

When did you decide to stop talking?

Two or Three months ago when they made me this video because I'm getting to emotional. I live through it every time I talk about it.