Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Louis Kaye - May 9, 1983

Immigration to United States

Why, why the United States?

I had no place else to come.

Israel?

Hm?

Israel?

I was... Israel at that time, I couldn't go.

You couldn't go to Israel?

There was a reason I could not go, no. There was a reason. My friend was going to Israel. He wrote me back, where he is and everything. I couldn't go to Israel at that time. I come to United States. I come with Jewish social service. This the reason, if I be younger I could come first to wait for the quota to come to United States. I supposed to come to Pittsburgh, I come to Detroit.

Why Detroit?

Pardon me?

Why, why Detroit?

I have a friend in Detroit. That was two weeks, two or three weeks I was here and I was doing work right away. Was three weeks in the United States and I was going to work right away.

Where did you work?

High Grid on Michigan Avenue. And at that time it was sixty, eighty-four hours a week. I was three weeks in this country. Then I was working with General Motors. In 1951, I start a business for myself, and then I now working for myself.


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