Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Simon Goldman - June 6, 2003

Moving to United States

Where did you come to the United States?

Well I came to, to Germ...I mean, to New York. I didn't have no choice where they're going to send me. They send me--well, first of all, everybody comes to New York. In New York they turned me over to the Jewish, Jewish uh, Jewish Health Service. I came under the United States Committee and they turned me over the Jewish Health Service. And the Jewish Health Service then... I was in New York for about ten days and then they placed me there--they had to find a place where they could place me with a family where I can live, board and room. So in New York we spent there--there was some kind of hotel there that they kept people like, like us in uh, until they could place 'em somewhere. And they sent me to Cleveland in a holding place and I was in Cleveland for about six, six weeks, maybe not even that long.

In somebody's house?

No, in Cleveland we were almost like a welfare--I don't know that was really. I know that they had some American kids in there, where they had juvenile... kids that committed some kind of a felonies or something that they held 'em, but they...they just put us up in separate, in a holding place there. There was a few of us. And I was there until they found a place for me in Detroit.

In Detroit. And where was that? What was the place?

In Detroit? Yeah, it was uh, on ???. They found a family. In fact, I was in there with the, with another fellow that I met. Jack Kluvinski. I don't know if you ever heard of him.

What was the family name?

Uh, the family name was uh, Bookhauser.

Ok. Jewish Family Service...

Yeah.

...placed you.

Yeah, they got paid for it, they paid him for it.

And did you go to school then?

Yeah. I was going to day school. I was going to ??? at this time.

So you learned English.

Yes. Yeah, I came to New York it was December 20, '46.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn