My mind was in turmoil. From one day to the next, I was whisked away from my happy, carefree life as a 10-year-old in Thorpe, England, to a large ship, on my way to America. Of course, I knew the USA was a country, and I guess I also knew I had family there. Other than that, I had no picture in my mind of what to expect when my sister Bertl and I landed. I had never been to see a movie about the USA. In fact, I had never seen a movie about anything. My foster family did not go to movies and did not have a television.
When we finally arrived in New York, we were met by two uncles. Bertl had the advantage of knowing Uncle Sali, my father’s brother, because he had lived in Adelsheim before he immigrated to the USA. Uncle Jim was married to my father’s sister Sophie, who had been in the USA since the 1910s. I really don’t remember landing, going through the immigration system, or even what New York looked like. We took a train to Washington, DC. Once in DC, we were taken to my Uncle Sigmund’s (another brother of my father) home. I guess if I thought about it at all, I expected life to be a lot like life in Thorpe. Definitely, a mistaken idea.
Nothing in DC was the same as in Thorpe. There were many relatives to meet and remember. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and a brother, Herman, knew who we were, but I didn’t know any of them. I certainly had never heard of them before. While I knew my Aunt Hannah (my mother’s sister), this bunch was different. They were loud, opinionated, and often fought among themselves and then made up. The city itself was different—with broad streets and streetcars. No double-decker buses here. The houses were close together, without areas to raise vegetables or keep chickens. In other words, very urban.
Another difference was school. I loved school in Thorpe and was just getting ready to take the 11-plus exam to see where I would go to secondary school. I did well in school. Alan, my foster brother, said I was very competitive and liked to be at the top of my class. Here, I walked to the neighborhood elementary school, where my classroom teacher was also the principal of the school. There were three different grade levels in the room I was assigned to. I had been placed with older students because English schools were ahead of American schools at that time. I didn’t really learn anything in my few months at Gage Elementary School.
My sisters and I lived, as I said, with my Uncle Sigmund, Aunt Regi, Grossmutter (grandmother), cousins Arthur and George, and another immigrant family in a row house on North Capitol Street. My sisters and I shared a large room with a curved window that looked out onto North Capitol Street. I’m not sure how many floors or rooms there were in the house. Somehow or other, whatever I was doing, Grossmutter was always there—watching. She supposedly didn’t understand English, but it was rather unnerving. I believe my uncle worked for the Giant Food bakery at the time, and my aunt, whose nickname was Tiny, worked for Morton’s department store. My cousin George was in high school, and Arthur had a job. I rather liked Arthur because he was kind to me. My sisters had met him in London, when he was in the military service. My other cousin was a bully, and I had no idea whom to turn to for help. It was a situation I had never faced before. I really don’t remember anything about the other refugee family.
Two doors up the street, there was a girl about my age, and we became friends. Her grandfather worked at a movie theater. After my uncle took me kicking and screaming to see my first movie, my friend and I sometimes went to see movies together where her grandfather worked.
In England, the fundamentalist Christian chapel, a long, one-story building, painted white with many windows, had been a big part of my life. Here there was nothing that resembled that. The first year we lived in DC, we visited my relatives at Auchtus, a German Burial Society, for services for the high holidays. The service was in Hebrew and German, so I understood nothing about it. For a short time, Uncle Sali belonged to the Washington Hebrew Congregation, and I was enrolled in the religious school. Because I did not understand Hebrew or German and had no experience with Jewish services, I had no idea what was happening and didn’t actually attend. Only after my sisters and I moved to our own apartment did they encourage me to join a Jewish Youth Group.
All in all, my introduction to life in the USA was not a happy time for me.
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