Abraham Mondry - June 15, 22, 29 & July 13, 1992
Cousin in the U.S. I
In 1949, you decided to come to the United States. Why?
I had a cousin here. His name was Herzog. My cousin, Fema, she married, married this guy in Frankfurt, in Germany, you know. They went to school. And he come here and he was a big deal. He was a vice president, an American Smelting Company. I don't know if you ever hear of the American Smelting Company, the biggest aluminum, you know. They make everything from a lighter to the wings on an airplane, everything what is of aluminum. So, he, he was in Italy trying to see me, how he got there, see. I got, one time, a telegram to meet him in Grand Hotel in Rome. And he ordered a suite, you know, like two rooms, two rooms with an extra room, you know.
A suite.
Like a little suite, yeah. It was, it was in 1945 yet and nobody, nobody could travel. Only he had a special...He was from the State Department. He could fly a military plane. There was lots of military planes going up. I come there. I wait. Nobody shows up. They had a room for me to, to wait. Then the officer...And they, they tell me, "Oh, you mister, yeah, we got a room for you. Your cousin called." You see, but something happened. He had an accident with the Italian ??? I don't know if you know, there are plenty Italian word, you see. They let him take his car. He had a ??? in '45, it went off on an assembly. So, he got it in to Switzerland, in Switzerland. He drove to Italy. He want to travel to Italy with some friend of his. So, he walked out, he walked all of the time. He walked out and he fall, he broke his leg. And some of the nuns picked him up, you know, the sisters, the nuns. They picked him up, you know and they took him to the hospital. They put him on a cast. And after two days he come down with that cast on a wheelchair, on that cast he had. You see, he, he was the first one who sends me $50, you know. He was the first one who sends me $50 when he went to Italy.
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