Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982
Finding Sister and Mother
How did you find your sister and your mother after the war?
I remember my wife and myself--we have a message from somebody that my sister is in Bergen-Belsen. This is in occupied uh, territory by the English. This is by Hamburg, ??? way up to the end. So we drove there--I don't know how many days we took there--and we went to the camp, and we ask. So they tell her that my sister and my mother's in Sweden. Count Bernadotte took my mother and my sister to Sweden. And somehow through the Red Cross we got a contact. We contact each other through Amer...American. My sister came to Germany in 1946 or seven, I think it was seven. And she was with me for six months and she went back to school, so, this--and my mother came to Germany to visit me.
So from your whole family, how many survived?
Three.
Three...
Not too many people were--was lucky like me because they're friends of mine they have nothing, nobody. My family--I would say my family in Kraków now--one aunt, two aunts, three aunts, cousins. About thirty, twenty-five people. How many survive? Two? Three, four, five. My two cousins--they're in Montreal--and my sister. Six. And my mother, she passed away. My brother in Israel. And myself, six.
And you married your wife in 1947. And then when did you come to the United States?
In 1950, January.
Nineteen fifty. And before that you lived in Germany, until 1949...
Lived in Germany...
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn