Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Irene Sobel - September 8, 1998

So you went back to Israel and you decided to...

We lived--we went back to Israel, lived about a year and a half and then came permanently. And during that time my sister came to Israel with her family and I lived a year with them in the same city. And uh, somehow I have lived all my life apart from my family. And it wasn't a heartbreaking decision to leave my family. Uh, my sister was in another city all her life, I mean uh, her married life. It was not a traumatic decision for me to leave. Uh, there was a element of sadness, but not a traumatic decision. And I was--I missed uh, not so much the conveniences of the United States, because during the time when we were here, a year and a half, year and a half, two years, didn't have great conveniences because we tried to save everything we could and I had some lousy jobs just to earn money. But I was eager for the challenges. Coming back after living in the United States I felt claustrophobic in Israel.

You missed the excitement.

I missed the exci...I missed the opportunities, I missed the opportunities that I felt I would not have in Israel.

So you moved back to Detroit, directly to Detroit?

Uh, well my husband left first to find a job and by then we had a baby and I stayed uh, with--in Israel until he found a job. He found a job in Detroit, so we came to Detroit. And Detroit was his city, he was born here. So we came to Detroit.