Harry Praw - June 30, 1982
Meeting Family in New York
There was a shortage.
No way. Somebody had an apartment, "How much money you got?" No matter who it was. And then uh, when I came here, I knew I had a cousin that came a couple of years before I did. Came in 1947, came to the States and he came to New York. So, I don't know how I found him but I did find--I think he wrote me to Germany so I had an idea--I had his address.
Uh-huh.
So I looked him up and he told me that we have two aunts here and it so happens that my--one of my aunts lived around the corner where I was staying.
In New York.
In the Bronx, in New York. But of course, I didn't know them and they didn't know who I was or--so he said, "I'm coming over right, right in about a half an hour." He lived, he lived about ten minutes away from where I was staying. He said, "I'll meet you in a half an hour." And uh, of course it was our Christmas time, the first time when I went to New York so he took us over--he took me over to my aunt and I met the, I met the family. I met my aunt, my uncle, cousins, of course, I didn't know who they were--I know who they were and we knew them by their European names. In Europe, your name was ??? here was Helen.
Sure, old names.
In the old country if your name was ??? here you're Mary but we heard the names. It was ??? grandfather always talking ??? lives here, Sue lives here, here's Sally but we figured Sue and Sally is the same thing. And this one, this one told me you know you got another aunt that lives a few blocks away and they called them over and that's how we met the family. But of course, they weren't--we thought--we had different thoughts about the United States. We actually couldn't believe--you couldn't convince anyone in Germany before we came here that you find poor people in the United States. It was just...
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn