Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map
• Video

Mala Weintraub Dorfman - September 15, 2005

And then you got your own place.

Then I got my own place. And then when he, while he worked there he looked for a business, he got into the business right away. And, but I said to him, "I do not want to live in Germany, I want to get out of there." So, we registered. And took us uh, we came to the States in '49, took us five years. Four years actually. And when I got my papers, I ended up making money and he was recognized and there was a German company in Frankfurt that want to take him in the Frankfurt ??? to make, to be a partner. They promised us everything, the whole, everything to give us. And I said to Henry, "Not me. I will, not going to live in Germany." So, he said another year, another year. But that one time the next door neighbor was going to G... to America and he wanted to buy a ??? So, they brought him the ??? the night before he was leaving and they took him down in the basement, they killed him and cut him up in pieces, the Germans. I said to Henry, "I'm out. No matter what you're going to do, I'm not staying here." And my papers came, the day when I was supposed to leave, I packed everything up, whatever I could, what could you take, not too much. Anyways, and at the time I-he wanted to go to Israel. So, we sent some stuff to Israel. But the uncle, his uncle said to us, don't come to Israel, it's very bad now. You have opportunity to go to America, go to America. So, when the time came to go, I said, "I'm leaving. You don't want to leave, you stay. I'm not staying." So, I went to Bremenhaven and he had still slaughtered some cows and whatever he did, he sold it, he got the money, he paid the government whatever he had to pay for the taxes, because he wanted to come back, otherwise he wouldn't do it. But he wanted to come back to Germany. And we left for G... for America. And I said, "I'm not going back. If you want to go back, you go, not me." And it was rough. When we came to America, it was rough. You know, we went to Topeka, Kansas. No one spoke our language. But then we were lucky, we met the pr... the principal from the college uh, in Topeka and we went to school. And he liked us. So, he used to come, his wife used to come to my house and teach me English. Fork, knife, spoon, chair. And that's how I learned the language.