Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Esther Feldman Icikson - October 23 & 29, November 5 & 12, 2001

Hm, okay.

So it's, it's like it's wave...

Yeah.

...Galila. Um, we boarded the, the--actually it was boat, right. Yeah, boat. We boarded the boat. It must have been, maybe in the afternoon, I don't know. No, it was earlier than the afternoon. And I was very excited, very excited. We got on that boat and um, everybody got assigned to a bunk you know, deep inside and you put your stuff away and you're very excited and don't know what to expect, right. And...

Did you talk to your parents about it? Any conversation?

No, you settle down and you figure out where you're going to sleep, next to who and... And it's late afternoon. My birthday's December the 24th. So it--we traveled for about, I think, ten days. So it had to be the middle of December, just a little earlier, because we arrived to Israel maybe the 30th. 'Cause I know I, I was on the boat, my birthday was on my--on the boat. I mean, I didn't celebrate it, but I remember I had my birthday on the boat.

So it's almost '49 already.

No, December '48.

December '48, so it's almost 1949.

Yes.

Yeah. Did you have a birthday party?

Oh no, no. I don't remember.

There was no celebration.

Oh no, no. I just, I just remember that I was thinking that how lucky I am that I'm almost in Israel for my birthday. I wasn't quite there but I was very close. 'Cause I think we arrived maybe the 30th or the 28th, something like that. I'm not sure. Maybe the 28th. I know it was not, it was not New Year's yet. It was still '48 when we arrived to Israel. So it had to be like maybe four...twenty-eight or twenty-seven, something like that. Um, so I'm, I'm boarding that boat and I'm very excited, and guess what? It, it says goodbye to the shores and it starts going and an hour later I'm sick like a dog.

Oh.

The waves were just you know, the sea was so, uh...

This is your first sea journey.

My first sea journey and it's very uh, tough. It was a terrible trip. And we were just so sick, all of us.

How long did it take?

I think we traveled ten days or something like that.

And you were sick all the time?

Yeah.

Oy.

My daddy took us up on the deck taste a little fresh air and he finally, he put--I don't know where he found sardines, but that's what I ate, sardines. I felt a little better but I was sick all the time, it was terrible.

And the rest of your family was okay.

Uh, no my mom was sick too. My dad was okay. I don't know about my brother Ray. He was a little boy, he was uh, five years old. I don't know what he ate, I don't remember, because I was so sick, I was out of it. I mean you know, I was very sick. All the time I was very sick.

Okay.

Yeah.