Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Sonia Nothman - January 4, 1983

And she called me, she begged me to stay--to come here, because she doesn't have anybody. So I rented two unfurnished rooms. There was nothing in those rooms. There was a big bed in one room. In the kitchen was a little table. And the stuff was in the middle we shared together. I don't care. For the baby I got a crib. Somebody, I don't know gave me ??? We have uh, lots of nice memories. Even I didn't have furniture. My friend came, I lived on Coney Island. We used to go to the beach. Very nice. Uh, good memories from there. Even without money, without uh, nothing. And I lived there and my sister always ??? Finally my brother came later. And my sister came here from New York with her husband and took me with the baby. And my husband stayed there with my brother there. And I came here and I stayed with my sister. She lived on ??? It was many years ago. You probably don't know. Her husband's family had apartment. It belonged to them because they were really very happy. And I stayed there, I don't know, a few months with the baby. She didn't have any kids then. Until that time the, a place on my own ??? And upstairs was a doctor, ??? a doctor, was another office. And there was two rooms, two bedrooms or something and a little tiny kitchen. And we put so much work in the floors were burgundy, dark it had a dark--dirty. We took down the walls and we painted and fixed up. And then we got a couch with a little, we fixed and my brother stayed there and I have a little one for the baby and one sister. Then we brought my other sister here from New York, but my brother had a family here. We brought them here because we all lived together. And my brother was married here. And my other sister, my younger sister came here too. We were together. We know what a fam...family is.

Uh, did you become a citizen of the United States?

Oh, right after ??? I learned uh, English in Germany. Oh yeah I used to read magazines. And I have a picture there in Germany ??? I used to teach my kids how to spell. ??? accent you cannot lose. But I...Oh yeah, I spoke English when I came over here.

You did?