Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Michael Opas - [n.d.]

Mm-hm.

...'til I found myself a, a little, a little apartment.

Where was this?

This was uh, on, on uh, on Pingree.

Okay, still in the Detroit area.

Yeah, in the Detroit area--not, not far from that shelter. That shelter was on Tyler, Tyler near Davison.

Mm-hm.

Also near--off of 12th Street. So, I looked around in this, in this area there--finally a guy who I knew--who I went to school with--the only thing is--the only good thing is I went to school immediately. The very next day after I arrived I went to school--to evening classes to test take. This was the only school in the summer open.

Mm-hm.

So I went to this school. I--'til I got there. It took me two hours. I had to tra...I had to travel with three buses from, from ??? to, to ??? to Cass. But I got there. I went--you know, they, they told me right away it will take about two hour. So I left early at--for, for a seven o'clock class. Well, the only good thing is I, I learned something there. But uh, they couldn't find any apartment--they were not available. And if it was available they wouldn't take us in with a child. It was terr...very rough time. Oh terrible things. I was hunting from early in the morning to late at night--I went, went looking for apartment. They told me, "You go out and look for it and we will, we will pay if you find something." I found some apartment, but they wouldn't let us in with a child. So I had to find some...finally I had to buy, I had to buy some old furniture. A flat--there was on Pingree--there was an, an older couple living there. And they, they were moving in to their children's--with their children. So they--in order to get that, that lousy flat, I had to buy their, their old furniture--maybe fifty years old for four hundred dollars. They were wor...not even ten dollars worth. Really junk. But in order to get a little apartment--because we couldn't live that--in that shelter house for...forever. After six weeks we had, we had it--like my concentration camp. So finally they, they actually paid that four hundred dollars--the Jewish Family Service gave me four hundred dollars to--I told them, "That that's the only, the only way to get an apartment." So they paid us this money and uh, and we moved into this apartment with the old furniture. There we lived about a year and a half. Then I moved.