Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
England
On, on September 1st, onSeptember.
Second.
second, when England became involved in the war what, what were your reactions? Yours and yourfather's?
I had, well-I wasn't with my parents. I was in thehospital working and they were staying in a home not too far from there. Iremember turning on the radio and hearing, hearing this address and I washorrified with the war. And I was thinking of all the people who were leftbehind. And then I contacted my parents and my mother was frantic about herrelatives and my father about his brother and mother and sister-in-law. Becausewe knew the communication was then cut. We couldn't write from England anymore.But I, I was afraid he would win. They thought he would lose right away and Ithought he was going to win. And that would be a close, then you'd go throughthe whole thing again.
Yeah.
Especially when it looked like he was going to comeacross the channel.
Well, when did thebombing start?
Oh it started in the end of '39, by which time theuh, British government had decided that I was an enemy alien. They began toworry about uh, the many people with a German passport. And I was in Exeter,which is a southern town. So they made me quit the hospital and I had to cometo London. And my father was interned in England. And there were uh, thevillage kids were, were throwing red tomatoes and they were shouting Germanswine which was so funny, it should have been recorded. Anyway, he was internedin England and my mother and I were in London waiting for their passage. Andthen my mother sent a letter to their cousins here asking him to extend theaffidavit to me. And I was at that time twenty and a half and I came over astheir minor child because I just missed the twenty-one, see. So they didn'tneed that much of an affidavit. They just needed a small support statement.
So you left in 1941.
In 19...in November 1940. We came across and uh, Iwent to the embassy and I had written a falsified letter-maybe that will makemy immigration illegal. Saying that my parents had asked me to pick up theirpapers for them because my father couldn't get out. He was interned and we hadto pick up the visa from the embassy. So I wrote myself a letter and I wentwith that and they gave me the visa. And then I had to go to the camp and getmy father out of hock.
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