Anna Greenberger - August 24, 1982
Leaving Israel
Your sister was already in Toronto.
In Toronto. She was first here. And her--that's another story. And so uh, and she right away she started. She sent a, a affidavit for us, we should come to Canada. We shouldn't bother with United States, nothing. We left all the papers in Prague. We gave back the passport, we had to--the American passport--and we had the group to go to Israel. So we went with a group, not even with a passport. We went with ??? it's a horrible army boat. So uh, she sent us an affidavit. We arranged--took a hell to arrange everything to go out because they didn't want to let out the Jews, you know. That time 'specially people were just coming.
Oh yeah.
But we explained that my mother was sick, she couldn't stand the climate. And that's true. She had very high blood pressure. And she had constant headaches. She was constantly crying after my father. And uh, we got the visa transit Rome. We arrived to Rome. We had to pay all the deficit what Igzim had, what the people who came first, they stole all the money from the Israel. The government was giving money and they were taking for themselves. I wrote the names. Some are here--very wealthy in the United States and they had deficit. We had to borrow money from some people here and from some of my cousin and friend there to pay the deficit, otherwise they didn't want to let us out. So we came out to Italy. We arrived to Rome and we didn't got the visa to Canada. Because I had my sisters in Czechoslovakia and why did I leave there, why did I stay there and what I have my brother-in-law doing there and probably they are communist and probably this. And a German woman--she must have been a SS--she was turning me upside down for one hour inside. And they didn't give us. They said, "We are very sorry, but you are not uh, fit to go to Canada." So we got stuck in Italy.
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