Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

Relative in America

Now, one of your, one of your aunts lived in Detroit?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

This was ???

No.

Hannah...

No. My father's sister Bertha--Blume .

Oh, okay. Blume. And you said at one point that your father um, had papers...

???.

...to come to the United States.

Yes.

When, when was that?

I think it was sometimes in the--somewheres in the early '30s.

So how come he didn't come--or did he come?

No. First of all, he had no money. No, he never came.

He didn't come and go back.

No.

S...some people did that.

No, he did not go. First of all, I understand he was broke and second of all, he was sick. Because I remember there was this, this kind--there were my mother telling this guy--not telling me but you know, that he had some problem with his lungs. So for a whole year, he didn't do anything, just stay in bed. I don't remember that. I don't remember seeing my father in bed all the time. So that means that I was not--or must have been two, three, four. I don't know.

Uh-huh.

Because my mother always felt obligated--kind of like obligated to do good things to her two brothers, Pinhaus and Moishe because although they did not help her out directly, she used to go to Grandma and Grandma used to squeeze the boys.

Hm, I see.

Or she asked for more money or whatever, housekeeping that's all. You know you know, you don't want to go to your brother and you know, a...ask for support. They understand that. And they were no big, big uh, uh, big rich people either. They, they had a hard time making a living.


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