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Jack Gun - August 12, 1999

So what was the-what made the, the, the, the final decision?

Uh, I think he convinced her that we shouldn't go there.

And you had family here.

We had family here, and sh...so, so did she.

And, and had you contacted them?

Uh, we contact them while we were in the DP camp. We sent letters with a American soldier who was going back to the states for a furlough-vacation. And we gave him a letter, one to my uh, to my relatives in Pennsylvania. They were in a very small town in Breckenridge. So, my brother knew the name of the city and I don't think he had the street, but it's such a small town that uh, they had no problem finding them. And my sister-in-law had uh, two uncles, her father's brothers that lived in Detroit. So she had their address. So she got in touch with them. And we finally received a-we had to wait 'til the quota was up. Because, you know, at first it went with immediate family like a daughter to a father. So on and so forth. We were nephews, you know. So we had to wait awhile. But the some-not as bad as we thought. And end of '47, after being in a DP camp approximately two years. Uh, we started the process of going to the United States. Uh, yes.

You c...how did you come?

Uh, we first had to come to Salzburg, I remember, Austria. And s...and we had to make papers there. And from there we went to Munich. We stayed in another camp called the Funkerzeiner in Munich. And there we went through all kinds of medical tests. In fact, there was a little glitch also, they found some spot on my lungs for some reason. And that-they delayed it for a little while. And uh, 'til we cleared everything. Uh, it was January sometime, January the eighteenth, I believe, we left. We left Munich for Bremen haven. And from Bremenhaven to New York.

By ship.

By ship. Army ship by the name of Marina Fletcher. And I also recall very vividly of being sick the whole time, days on the trip. Uh, every time I would go down to the mess hall to eat, I used to-before I got to the table I went back to give cookies back. That's how sick. It was a very rough uh,

Crossing...

yeah, it was in January. Had to cross the English Channel, you know, and a lot of bad water, you know, rough waters.