Erna continued to assist the Weisburgers from New York.
In November 1943, they got an entrance visa to the US.
On December 1, the family flew from Havana to Miami on board Pan American flight 30010.
The flight manifest lists them as stateless.
Also on board were four members of the Nussbaum family, also stateless.
In 1943, the US admitted 23,725 permanent residents, the lowest number since 1933 and the second lowest since 1831.
John was interviewed by the FBI.
Q: How do you feel about the Germans?
A: They are my enemy.
Q: How do you feel about serving in the US armed forces?
A: I’d like to finish my BS first, one semester remaining and then go to officer training school.
He was told to report for duty in June 1944.
To finish his undergraduate studies, he went to the University of Cincinnati which offered him full credit for his work at the University of Havana, the University of Brussels as well as college-level courses at the Athenée de St Gilles.
A month after they arrived, Willy, Selma and Margaret were living at 363 Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn.
[Willy] got a job in a factory, a very low job.
The owner of the factory called him in after a short time and he said, “You’re not a factory worker. You must have been an executive.”
[Willy] said to him, “I can give you a lot of tips, what you should change here.”
He left there.
[Selma] knitted for a store in New York.
She knitted a suit for Marlene Dietrich.
Incredible!
{Erna}
Then they opened a jewelry place on 47th St, where everybody worked.
Margaret designed… Willy designed.
Selma had learned to be a stone polisher or cutter in Cuba, so she knew something about that.
They got orders.
Then they had a robbery.
Willy & Selma decided not to stay in New York.
They went to California.
They figured it was a little too far away from the family,
and they moved to Florida.
{Erna}
I secured a position as a jeweler’s apprentice and completed my high school education within six months, at night.
I continued working in the jewelry line during the day, and went to evening session at Brooklyn College for two years until I knew what I wanted to major in. Then I switched to day session.
{Margaret}
Psychology was Margaret’s major.
She got both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brooklyn College, and later a doctorate from Yeshiva University in the Bronx.
She met my father, Martin Goldstein, in the library at Brooklyn College – or was it at the pool? Both stories were told.
Margaret & Martin moved to White Plains, a suburb north of New York City, in 1956, where they raised two children, Bruce (me), and Vivian.
John did get drafted in the summer of 1944 and was sent to Naples, Italy in February 1945.
He joked that the German surrender in May 1945 was a direct result of his return to Europe.
He was assigned to army intelligence because he knew German, and was sent to Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna in Austria.
John returned to the University of Cincinnati in June 1946 for graduate studies leading to a PhD in the laboratory of radiochemistry & cancer research, one of the first labs of its kind.
He met Elizabeth [Betsy] Kreiser in the lab.
They had three children: Bill, Diane & Andy.
They both did cancer research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland for over 20 years.
John went on to work on as research director in cancer prevention at the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York.
He and his second wife, Helga Preschel, lived nearby in Elmsford.
Five of the six Barth sisters made it to the US with most of their extended families.
Hannchen’s grandson Freddy Mayer was an American spy who negotiated the unconditional surrender of nazi Tyrol without a shot being fired.
The sixth sister Emma Maier continued to live in Belgium, as did her children, Alice & Louis, after they returned from concentration camps.
Wilhelm Maier died in concentration camp.
Erna lived in the New York area, married twice and had two children.
She did everything from piecework in factories to managing businesses (her cousin’s butcher shop, her husband’s pharmacy) to real estate (rentals, flipping houses, development projects).
Willy’s brother, Leo and his wife, moved to New York from Stuttgart soon after Willy moved to Brussels.
Willy’s sister Helena, her husband Max Feinstein, and one of their three children were murdered by the Nazis. The other two children made it to Israel.
Willy’s sister Liesel, her husband Julius Kahn and two of their three daughters were deported from their home in Pforzheim in October 1940 to Gurs, another concentration camp in southern France.
John testified to Yad Vashem that all four were victims of the holocaust.
Just shy of her 19th birthday in August 1942, Beate was loaded onto a freight train bound for Auschwitz, where she was murdered.
Julius was sent from Gurs to Dachau, and then on to Auschwitz in March 1943, where he was murdered.
Liesel was sent from Gurs to the Drancy transit camp near Paris, and then on to Auschwitz in a cattle car in May 1944, where she was murdered.
The third daughter immigrated to the US.
There were 108 people in Willy & Selma’s generation – siblings, first cousins, second cousins, and their spouses.
At least 33 (31%) were murdered by the Nazis.
We were victims of racism in the past,
so let’s fight racism today.
We supported each other in the past,
so let’s support each other today.
We were helped by the kindness of strangers,
so let’s be kind to a stranger today.
We were stateless refugees fleeing from war,
so let’s have mercy on the powerless today.
We were immigrants given a chance at a new life,
so let’s do the same for others today.
{Bruce}
And, as Erna once counseled me, in a crisis:
Just keep going.
Take one step.
And then take another.
2,166 total views, 2 views today