Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Kurt Stern - February 11, 2008

So you arrived...

And I joined the army. The agreement were before we left London was that you joined the army and if you're still alive after the war they'll bring you back. That was the agreement, which I took uh, when the war ended in 1949 they didn't know what to do these volunteers and at that time the law um, came out that every youngster in Israel should serve two years in the army so they gave the opportunities of the Mahalniks, these volunteers, to all finish their two years or get ??? which I did. And I took the opportunity to go back to, to England a few weeks and um, when I wanted to come back I wrote to my cousin Avram, Ruth's brother, that he should get me a job on one of the Israeli boats from Marseille, which I did. They wanted me to stay and work on the boats but I didn't.

And, and you came to Tel Avi...right to Tel Aviv?

Well I came to--I had nowhere to go to except my cousin Avram who was also just trying to establish himself. He was--served in the police force after he left--he was uh, I think a member of the kibbutz when he came back after the war and he moved--he went to Haifa, stayed in the German colony over there. He had an apartment--rented probably an apartment. He had two children and I stayed with him. I came, I looked for work and then I joined up with the army for one year and then I got demoted in 1951. I was in the army for one year.