Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984

And after three and a half years of living like this. I also started to paint scarves, you know, for a cooperative. Well, we uh, we survived. Then I--you didn't ever know when you get your passport or if you get it if they're going to let you out. So for three and a half years I didn't know anything. I lived from day to day, you know. Then they uh, one day I, I received passport approved, you know. We had to leave in one month.

So when did you come here?

We came here in 1963. We, we, we left in '62 and we were at ??? for about one year until they check on you and they give you--and once I'm in the entrance, we went to United States most of them come from a communist country and uh, we uh, my daughter was in school in Paris for about six months. And we stayed in Paris for six months and then I, I went to Belgium. I had a cousin there because I thought I would get a job. ??? from HIAS. It was very, very little. It was very hard to live on. I didn't get the job because in Paris it was very hard because they had their problem with Algier in '62.

Sure.

And in Belgium they had a problem with Congo and the people who had come back from Congo. And uh, then I found something in Germany, my daughter was in Belgium in school and a friend told me come to Germany and you'll find something here. Everybody told me to stay in Germany because I would get, you know, a lot of this money. And I, I can't stay in Germany, not matter what. Many people remained in Germany, but uh, I went and I saw a Germany uniform, you know, I was sick for the rest of the day. So I, I couldn't have--I stayed only for about three months because I did get the job in Germany and uh, my daughter was in Belgium in school, in a boarding school, and she used to come every weekend. It was close because I was in uh, Düsseldorf and she was--I, I tried to get a school as close to the border as possible because I couldn't have made her--you know, she had her schooling in French and it was hard enough, but she knew French from home. But uh, I couldn't have, you know, put her to another, to start school in Germany, you know, she didn't know any German. And uh, in Germany we got our, finally, our entrance visa to the United States and we came in February. First of February in 1963 there arrived I think by boat. She wanted very much to come by boat, so we'll probably never have another opportunity to come by boat, so we came by boat. And then we came directly to Detroit same, the same night.