Chapter 9.
On September 10, 1947, I left Bucharest by train, headed for Prague. The Hias sent about ten people on that same train - eight oldsters, myself and a young woman, my age, who was supposed to go to the U.S. to marry a cousin, whom she had never met. The two of us were supposed to keep an eye on the entire group, answer any questions about documents at the borders or whatever else may occur. Mary, the other young woman, came from a small town in Transylvania; she spoke Romanian and Hungarian; for the rest I had to step in.
It took about 36 hours to arrive in Prague. None of us had any foreign currency - we had no money in any currency, since it was against the law in Romania to take money out of the country. Somebody from Hias was supposed to await us at the Wilson Railroad Station in Prague. We had left on Friday and arrived early on Sunday morning.
The train filled up in Hungary and in Czechoslovakia it was overcrowded. I sat next to a Czech, to whom I spoke about all kinds of matters. He was a train conductor and was going home, to Prague, for a few days leave. He offered to show me his city, but I did not know where I would stay and for how long. We made an appointment, like the "good soldier Schweik" at noon, two days later, at the statue on Wenczeslaw Square. He said that everybody would be able to tell me where it was.
By the time we all got off the train, all ten of us, nobody awaited us. Since it was Sunday morning, there was no answer when we phoned. I had been advised, ahead of time, to ask directions in Russian. If the person would not understand me, to ask again in German. The Czechs hated the Germans so bitterly that they would not answer any foreigner who spoke German to begin with. Yet, at that time they sympathized with the Russians, who had liberated them from the German fascists. The strategy worked, they explained to us, Mary and myself, how to reach the Hias. The older people stayed behind, at the Railroad station. But we had no money for the fare on the street car. According to the instructions, we were supposed to take two street cars to reach the address. We told the person that we did not have the change for car fare, since we had just arrived from Romania. The second person, whom we asked again offered us the car fare. Soon after we arrived at the Hias, somebody came to the office. There was a cable instructing them to pick us up at Wilson Station. We reached the others and were eventually put up at a hotel, where we also took our meals and were told that we would leave in five days, on a direct train to Paris.
I met the gentlemen on Wenzel Square. Mary had come along with me. We admired the many beautiful bridges across the Vltava (Moldau) River. We saw the Hradczani Castle, situated across the river, on a high hill - but only from the outside. They told us that it was closed for the day. Later, we found out that on that particular day, in a communist "putsch" - conspiracy, they threw the foreign minister out of the window and declared to the world that he had committed suicide. The foreign minister was Massaryk, the son of the founder of the republic.
We spent the few days in Prague enjoying this historic city, with its unusual sights from the Middle Ages: the oldest synagogue in Europe called the Alt-Neu Synagogue (Old-New Synagogue), with the cemetery in back of the house of worship. The legend of the Golem of Prague originated from there. Rabbi Loew, known in Jewish scholarship as Rabbi Judah, the Maharal, wrote a famous commentary to Rashi. Among the legends told about him is the creation of the Golem, who on instruction from the Rabbi saved the Jewish community from persecution. As soon as the Golem had fulfilled his mission, the rabbi returned him to his lifeless state. I went to this house of worship on Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year. It was a most moving experience. Since few Czech Jews had survived, the crowd was made up of remnants from the survivors of different Jewish communities. The books, the torahs, the cemetery - everything, at that time, was in complete disarray. It was the most moving experience that I ever had in a synagogue.
I also saw and admired the square where Huss was burnt on the stake. He was the Czech reformer, who wanted to translate the Bible into the national language and was burnt to death by the prevailing Catholics, who judged him as a heretic. The old, historic town fascinated me no end. The medieval houses, with fortresslike portals, the waterwell in the courtyards, the crossover walks from one side of the street to the other, at the third or fourth floor level for escape, in case of attack; the walls around the area. It all brought the history of the city alive; it brought the Middle Ages alive.
Besides, Prague is famous for its many churches with gold-leaf covered domes.
In the sunshine, Prague is golden. I fell in love for ever.
At the end of the five day stay, the entire group boarded a train for Paris. Although my parents knew the time of my arrival, they could not travel on the train that far because of Father’s illness. An old gentleman, a former neighbor of ours, the one whose daughter had committed suicide and was laid out on my bed, this Mr. Nachman awaited me at the station. By that time he was already an old hand at travel in Paris; four months of residence made him an oldtimer. Well, he said that he loved the city, he regretted to have come so late in life.
The reunion was very emotional; Father’s appearance was changed. He looked drawn, pale; his voice weak, his eyes lustreless. Yet, my parents hoped that a resolution of their hardships was in sight. They wanted to show me off to Dr. Falk and his wife, two wonderful, helpful people. Next day I went to visit Dorzia in the Rothschild hospital. She had left for Paris before me and resided with her married sister, in Paris. The recurrence of pleurisy forced her into the hospital. Since the Metro in Paris works like a dream, it took me no time to be able to commute.
A funny little incident happened on my way to the hospital. It was the day before Yom Kippur. Mr. Nachman visited my parents and when he saw me about to leave, he bade a hasty good-bye and left with me. After about three stops on the metro, he had to change trains. Just before leaving, he embraced me and kissed me on the cheek, which he would never do otherwise. Only after he had left, did I realize why he was sorry not to have come to Paris 50 years sooner. So many couples were kissing on trains and he had missed all this enjoyment, all this life. At least, this time, he kissed a girl on the metro; he used the opportunity, at least once.
The refugees in the hotel were of different ages, from different countries, intending to travel to different destinations, with different intentions of building a future. Basically, they had in common their homelessness, their rootlessness, their great losses of family, friends, homes. They could not communicate with the people around them, except with each other. Some were waiting for months, others would be waiting for years for a visa to Canada or Australia or New Zealand or Chile. They were hounded by the French police when their transit visas expired and had to be renewed again and again. In the meantime, people had no more valid passports and remained stateless - in possession of a piece of paper with name, address, age and country of origin.
Coming back to my parents and their plight. After a long conversation and clearing up what the stumbling block was, next day I went with Mother to the American consulate on the Place de la Concorde. It was a palatial building, with many people working at reception desks, information - all civilians. As we were sitting there, I noticed a young man in uniform coming and going, talking to the American personnel. I had the impression that the man was Jewish. When he came out again, I approached him and asked him whether I could ask him for some advice. I told him that I was in possession of an American student visa, but that my parents desperately needed tickets on one of the boats: Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, in order to get their preferential visas. He introduced himself as Mr. Ungar and thus the contact was established. He gave me his telephone number and asked me to make an appointment to see him in the Hotel Republique, on Place de la Republique. He assured me that in case he was not there, his wife would make the appointment; she spoke Yiddish.
I came to his hotel next day and everything became clear. For double the price of a ticket from Southampton to New York, we could get tickets on one or the other boat. Of course, it had to be paid in New York to his brother in Williamsburgh, a section inhabited by Orthodox Jews. We wrote to New York and waited for him to get a signal from his family that double the amount of money had been paid for three tickets. It took about ten days for him to receive the proper letter; we got tickets for the parents on the Queen Mary for the first week in October and for myself, on the Queen Elizabeth, one week later.
As soon as the consulate saw an approval for passage by boat, they issued the parents their visas. I wanted to leave one week later because of the immigration authorities. Had they noticed, in New York, at arrival, that the parents came as immigrants and I as a student, they may had made great difficulties. I didn’t realize at the time that I would encounter complication on my arrival, anyway.
Before I left Bucharest, I had promised Evi that if I could find some connection to get her a visa to a South or Central American country, I would let her uncle in Paris know about it. When I met Mr. Ungar, I realized that he could get anything in Paris, for money. I talked to him about it and he got a visa for Evi, paid by her uncle in Paris. Such a visa was good as a basis to receive a passport in Romania, an exit visa and a French transit visa. Evi got her paper, arrived in Paris and lived at her uncle’s for several years, before going to Mexico and eventually to her father in New York.
When Dori Scharf found out through friends in Romania that I was in Paris, he went there from Milano. By the time he arrived, they told him in Hias that I had left for the U.S. He settled later in Brazil, where he lived for 20 years. He resides now in Israel.
After the parents left, I spent one more week in Paris. The Falks took me out one evening to a restaurant to see a new American movie "The Best Years of Our Lives," a top film about World War II. His cousin, Mr. Stark had come to Paris soon after my arrival. He had fallen in love with me and wrote me silly cards from Lille. He even came to Paris to see me off all the way to Southampton. He really spoiled that trip for me. He was well intentioned, but a terrible bore. Besides, he argued with everybody on the train ride, from Paris to Calais. Whenever one opened a window, he wanted it closed. He insisted everything different from anybody else, a real pain.
Mr. Ungar had bought a ticket for another woman, who spoke only Polish and Yiddish. She had a son in New York and she was going to marry a rabbi in Williamsburg. He asked me to be her companion; he put her under my protection, since she could not communicate with anybody on the train or on the boat. We slept one night in London, then took the boat-train to Southampton, to embark on the Queen Elizabeth.
The trip from Paris to Calais was uneventful, except that I could see the utter devastation of the region North of Paris, the area of fierce battles after the landing of the Allies in Normandie: the rubble in Boulogne, the wrecks of planes and trains strewn all over, battlefields not yet cleared. I had seen similar devastation on my train trip through Germany a month before. The train had stopped in Nurenberg. All you could see then were bombed buildings and shacks covered with cardboard roofs.
The short passage by boat from Calais to Dover was stormy, the boat was rolling and shaking and I felt seasick. Yet, the white cliffs of Dover were clear to see on that sunny, windy October afternoon. The queasy feeling on that short trip was a harbinger of things to come, of a week of stormy weather on the Atlantic.
As for my impressions of Paris, I spent three weeks there, not as a tourist.
There were important matters to take care of, there was a mission to fulfill. Lucky for my parents and myself, it was accomplished successfully, but with great anxiety, I spent one week alone in the Hotel Maillot, after the parents’ departure to New York in the room where my parents had spent four months.
I went to see the Louvre - a unique experience - and Versailles. The palace was completely empty since the French had hidden all the treasures during the war. The palace itself and the gardens were grandiose, but no flowers in bloom, no fountains in action. I went to see the tomb of Napoleon, in the Dome des Invalides. It was that day of the week when the building was closed.
I went to see the places that my high school French teacher, Miss Grunspan, had described.
Coming out of Bucharest, Prague was on the same scale, by size, manageable to walk around and see the Old City, its grandeur and history. Prague was also a revelation, since I did not know what to expect. It surprised and enchanted me, for I had not foreseen such beauty, such panoramas along the Moldau River (Vltava in Czech), the Castle on the hill, such bridges with statuary on them.
Paris, a much large metropolis, on a different scale from the cities seen before, was overwhelming. I could easily make myself understood, I recognized many streets and buildings and squares from my high school studies. It felt somehow as if I had seen it once, long ago.
The look of the people, their uninhibited behavior, their open expressions of tenderness - that I saw for the first time in my life. While in Romania, where I grew up, people flirted and loved just like any place else in the world, yet people acted very discreetly. Kissing and hugging occurred only in complete privacy, expressions of tenderness were hinted at - in Paris people kissed wherever one looked: in the streets, in the Metro, under street lights. People stopped you in the street, if you walked alone, and started flirting, talking, in a non-threatening way. It seemed like the most natural thing to do. As I went alone to the Consulate, to visit Dorzia, to see Dr. Falk, to see Evi’s uncle and to Mr. Ungar, I was traveling and walking all over the city. First I did not know how to handle people, who started talking to me. Then I decided to answer only in English - I don’t understand French. One young man started up a conversation, as I was walking down Champs Elysee, in the morning, at about 10 a.m. When I motioned that I didn’t understand and continued walking, he tried to express himself, like a mime and said: flirt, flirt. The French have love on their mind the moment they get up in the morning. We grew up so repressed, while they expressed themselves so openly and innocently. That was a revelation.
Another revelation was the way of getting our tickets. It showed me that corruption was everywhere. How Ungar divided up the sum of money with the people from the Cunard Line, a British company, I don’t know. Yet without the graft, things did not move, no way. It taught me that the Romanians were not alone in accepting "baksheesh" (bribe). They did the same in the West, with a vengeance. That corruption bothered me, too.
Later, my brothers told me that when they came to the gentleman in Williamsburg, to pay double for the tickets, he would not give them a receipt.
He said that this transaction works "on trust." It cost $1500 instead of $750 and that was a lot of money to hand out in 1947, without being sure that they were not a couple of swindlers. Yet they paid, they knew that it was imperative for the parents to leave. The man gave the signal, the tickets became available.
The sadness when meeting my ailing Father and distressed Mother threw a pall over everything at my arrival in Paris. The thought that had one of their sons come to Paris in July and perhaps eased their trip to America sooner, perhaps he could have been saved; perhaps Father’s life could have been prolonged; perhaps their lonesomeness could have been eased. One could see that Father was dying. In that situation, I could not really enjoy Paris. Besides, going to America was an unknown for me. At Columbia University, the semester had already started in the first week of September and here I was, in the middle of October. I arrived in New York on October 17, 1947.
Crossing the Atlantic took one week. Most of the passengers were Americans of English, Irish or Scottish descent, who had visited their families, for the first time after the war.
The food on the boat consisted mostly of fish, all kinds of seafood that I had never eaten before, that I knew only from reading and from dictionaries. Whether it was turbot or cod or hake or even salmon - everything was boiled and tasteless. To make matters worse, the ocean turned very stormy and I could hardly eat at all. The passengers could not place me, where I came from. I spoke English but differently from the Americans or the English. They found it hard to believe that anybody, coming from the Balkans would speak English, anyway. My room mate, the future "rebbetzin" was so seasick, she feared to get out of her bunk, in our cabin.
The night before our arrival, the storm was so severe that the boat anchored in the middle of the night and practically everybody came out of the cabins because of the commotion. As it stopped for a few hours, we could not arrive with the tide, in the morning but 12 hours later, in the evening. It was the first time that the Queen Elizabeth came in 12 hours late. That was the headline, in all the New York newspapers.
Everybody was excited, full of expectations and trepidation. We saw the Statue of Liberty, from afar - an impressive sight. The woman, who was traveling with me had not seen her son in years, had lost her husband during the war and was going to meet her intended new mate. I was going to see my family after so many years. When Eli left, I was five. Betty and Bernie saw me last when I was ten; Gertie when I was fourteen and Sali had left home ten years previously. I was 27 years old but had gone through troubles that could count for a hundred. Of course, there were uncles and aunts, in-laws, nieces and nephews, cousins.
The arrival turned out to be as complicated as everything that had preceded that event. Only the parents remained in the Bronx, where they were staying with Bernie and Connie since their arrival the week before. Father was too sick to travel; everybody else waited at the pier. When all had disembarked, I was left on the ship - the only passenger out of 2000 not to be allowed to disembark.
My family was told about difficulties with my documents. Somebody should come to the boat next day at ten, when the Immigration would take me to Ellis Island. The reason for not admitting me was my Romanian passport. It was valid for another three months only. Romania had turned communist lately and the immigration officials did not know how to proceed. They told me that, at that point, a passport had to be renewed or extended for another year, otherwise I would have to return on this same boat, back to Europe.
The ship, that was so elegant and animated when in use, looked like a death boat, at night. The crew took off all bedding, all the tablecloths and dishes, glasses and silver. It was dark and quiet and enormous; you heard some creaking noises at night.
Next morning, at 10 a.m. an official from the immigration called me to come down the gang plank. I looked around to see whether anybody from my family was there. I recognized my brother Bernie. When he saw me walk down, he approached us. I asked Bernie whether he had a car. When he affirmed, I asked the immigration officer whether he would mind going with me to the Romanian consulate, for I was sure that they would renew my passport right away; if not, he could then take me to Ellis Island. I made a sign to Bernie not to say anything. First the officer was surprised that a newcomer could speak English, then it seemed like a logical step to take. Bernie looked up the address of the consulate, then he drove there and I, flanked by an immigration official and my brother, asked the Romanian officials to extend my passport and they did, right on the spot, for six months.
We said good-bye to the immigration official and there I was, with my brother, in his car, going to the Bronx. Bernie called Connie to tell her that we were finally on the way home. There was no big reception for me as expected the day before, everything complicated, as usual. However, in the long run, things worked out.