Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Edward Linson - November 10, 1981

Did you have any problems when you came here?

Yes.

What kinds of...

The problems was I couldn't get a job that time. I couldn't get a job and I was miserable. And uh, I was uh, for instance, I saw a guy. He was a peddler--a junk peddler. He says to me, "I will take you to, to work. You will come six o'clock." This was on uh, Linwood and Richton. And I was living in a place and I hadn't got a, a, a clock and not a watch. And I was a whole night practically didn't sleep nothing. Now I'm used to this kind of thing. And I went downstairs. I was uh, looking for him and he didn't show up. It's nine thirty, so I went--I was frozen, I half dead, so I went the--you remember it was a, a, a movie, Avalon on Linwood? It's not your times? So I was over there a restaurant and this guy was from Russia, a nice uh, a nice person. So we come over there and I saw this guy was sitting. I came to him, I took off his glasses and I punch him a few times. I was so miserable.

But you got work finally.

No! Finally I went uh, the car--Hudson Car Company. So you know, one's a newcomer to the others, they are same. So I went over there and I spoke to one guy Polish, the other was uh, he spoke German, I spoke to them both, both languages. So they give me a job. On the fifth floor, in afternoon I got to, to work. At work my job was from the ??? they come up with the, with the, with the chain upstairs and you got to store away this. One day I, I was working and was over there the--somehow was over there paint, paint ???. Big can of paint and they put on the dollars. I was working about five months. All of a sudden I got a guy with--from Puerto Rico, and here got here, this, this thing. And uh, and I was working, just standing and was over there a foreman. He was a supervisor also with glasses, a red one with red hair. He came to me, come to me, "Come dummy, come stupid." What the hell is--I stupid? I took off the glasses and I punch him in the nose and it was the foreman with the name Foster. He was, he was smiling--he was hitting. And through this I should be fired, for beating up sometime--some...somebody. This is the law, you got to be fired. So I didn't care because I went uh, in the, the next day I went to Europe for a trip.