Hannah Fisk - January 24, 1983
Life in the United States
To Oklahoma City. Beautiful country, no winter. We couldn't make a living. There was no carpentry work. He was a carpenter. There was--the only work was to make uh, the ammunition factory. To work in the ammunition factory, you have to be a citizen. They wouldn't let you in. You have to wait five years to be a citizen. So he was working by the--you know the little basket, what you go to the grocery. Humpty Dumpty--very hard. Started at six o'clock in the afternoon, he came home six o'clock in the morning. And he slept all night--all day he slept. He was losing weight. And I mean, it's no, no fun. I went over and I start talking to them. I says, "Listen. He came out from a concentration camp. He--the guy was seventy pounds." I says, "He's, he's not going to survive." So, couple people went to Detroit, the Motor City. And my husband decided he's going to go. I remained there with Allan. They were good to me, too. They put me in a strictly Gentile neighborhood, I couldn't talk a word of English. We had fun. We had fun there, believe me. And uh, he came here and he find a Hudson motor car. He was working a little bit and he brought me with Allan. And I was living in 12 Street by a woman--we rent a room. And, it was very bad together in an apartment. I took Allan by my hand, who wants a kid that time? Nobody. So, Schwartz got pity on me and she took me in on the third floor on Pingree. I'll never forget. The chimney was right there. It was that hot. We were almost naked, summer and winter. Uh, we survived. For some reason, we survived, and we brought two more. Uh, he start working, he made an examination in uh, March and uh, start working by the carpenter. And I went to work and we struggle.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn