George Vine - July 5, 1983
Reunited with Cousin
Okay, but what did you do um, after you were liberated? Uh...
Uh...
How did you decide where to go?
In uh, I stayed in that camp for almost a year. And then one day a gentleman walks in and he says to me, "Are you George Vine?" I says, "yes." He says, "I'm your cousin." At that time, having a relative was a miracle, was the most miraculous thing you can happen to you. He was much older than I am and he just a coincidence, he knew that he had uh, relatives uh, that's my wife, Barbara Vine. That's uh, Bernie Kent.
Wife: Are you Ruth's son?
Yeah.
Wife: Oh, how are you?
Good.
And uh, this was my cousin that lived in a little town not far where we lived and he knew that he had relatives in, in, in that town. And right after the war, people were traveling all over Europe to ask, "Do you know somebody by that name? Do you know somebody by that name?" And he happened to bump into some people from the ghetto that I was with and they said, "Oh yeah, we heard that uh, George Vine is alive, and he's in Munich." So he went away to every place wherever there was a gathering of Jews and he was looking for me. And then he says, "Well, now that I find you, take all of your stuff you're coming with me." And he was in a camp in Backnang near uh, Stuttgart in Germany.
What was his exact relation to you?
My cousin. His...
And how?
His, his father and my mother were brothers and sisters.
Mm-hm.
And he survived in Russia. He was one of those people like my brother, who ran away. And he survived, his parents didn't, they were ???, they didn't survive. So and prior to that uh, a Landsmann of mine, and that was the gentleman that I told you before, who said that I saved his life, he had two brothers in America. And he got papers to go to America. So there was another thing that I didn't mention to you, on the train to Auschwitz my father also mentioned to me you have to live because you also have relatives in America. And he gave me the name, but I didn't know them. And uh, so when he was going to the United States, so I told him, "You know I have relatives in America." He says, "I know who your relatives are, don't worry, I'll find them." And he did. He found them and they were very influential people here. And as soon as they found out about me, they didn't ask me my name or anything. They went right away to high officials that were in the movie industry. And they used some influential people and they got papers for me and sent papers from the government.
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