Autobiography

I was born in Berlin in 1935 shortly after the rise of Nazism in Germany. My parents were both born in Germany, their parents having emigrated from Poland and Russia respectively. My father, largely self-taught, served as an advocate’s assistant prior to his marriage, and afterwards he was manager of a furniture store. One of my few memories of Germany was the morning after Kristallnacht in November 1938, when the synagogue adjacent to our basement apartment was vandalized, and our own apartment seriously damaged. As Jews without longstanding ties to Germany, we were given expulsion orders. After unsuccessfully applying to various countries for refuge, we were admitted for temporary residence in England, with plans to continue on to the U.S. My father was particularly eager to immigrate to the U.S. where he hoped to join my mother’s brother who owned a poultry farm in New Jersey. Concerned that immigration authorities in the U.S. would not allow him entry on account of an ailment he had contracted, he underwent surgery in a London hospital which unfortunately did not succeed. The surgery brought about his death, and he was buried in a London cemetery, leaving my mother to manage with two children, myself and an older sister. We were fortunate that my uncle in New Jersey was able to arrange for our immigration to the U.S. where we arrived in 1940, and our first year in the new country was spent on my uncle’s farm.