Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Ella Baker - May 11, 2011

Mm-hm. So um, who was, who was, who was this family, how did you find this family that sponsored you to come over?

I had an aunt who was also, also a uh, survivor.

Mm-hm.

And she had a brother who brought her here. And she discovered years to come some visitor from the U.S.

Mm-hm.

And she heard I am alive.

I see.

And I was adopted but I mattered, I was very much family...

Mm-hm.

At that time.

Mm-hm, mm-hm.

Okay.

Mm-hm.

So she was just very, very happy about it and she wrote to me. And she had a cousin and her husband was also British, Jewish British.

Mm-hm.

And uh, they sponsored me because my aunt didn't have enough...

Uh-huh.

Assets to sponsor anybody. She was a survivor herself.

So where did you go?

I was, came here Detroit.

Detroit, okay. And um, who was the family that sponsored you? Do you, um...

Sandler was the name, Sandler uh, I forgot his first name...

Sandler was the name.

Sandler, yeah.

So they were like uh, relatives?

Oh yeah that was, they, they, they uh, considered me as, as family.

Now, were you married at the time? Or...

I was a single mother uh, at that time uh, and later on, it was not feasible, it was more feasible to, to speed up...

Mm-hm.

Come here, many families are separated. But later there was a divorce and that's the way I become Baker, you know. And...

That was your, your, your...

Yeah, yeah, I, I have decide, you know, was the story that I put up left in there because I, I am responsible to bringing him after me. And then, I says I have a, I have child 5 year, 5 years old and let her find and, and develop her relationship. How do I explain to her and uh, 1 time she ask how come so-and-so got a daddy, I don't have a daddy.

Mm-hm.

And I says let her have, even the hard way it was the right way because I didn't have to explain why your daddy's over, over the ocean, you know.

So your, the, your first, your husband, Mr. Baker, who you married in, in Israel...

No, Baker I married here.

Here.

Salamon.

Salamon was your first husband?

Yes, that was, that was, I brought him from Israel here and...

Oh.

Then I, then I divorced here because nothing...

Ah.

Has changed. I was hoping, it was 2 and a half years uh, to be able to bring him here and I was hoping that would be realization, he wasn't evil, he was a decent, hardworking man...

Mm-hm.

But uh, that, that was it.

Got it.