داستان کوتاه انگلیسی

Sponsoring Relatives and Safety from Nazis in the US (part3)



Q: When did they stop treating you like you didn’t belong?

A: Generally I was never bullied, no one mistreated me, I never felt like they treated me like I didn’t belong. But people could tell from my accent in English that I wasn’t born here.

Q: What cultural differences did you have to adapt to when you came to the US?

A: I don’t really know. I think my surroundings in the US were different because I was so young when I left Vienna. I didn’t play in the streets in Vienna since I was too young, but I would do that in America.

Q: Do you identify more as an American or more as an Austrian?

A: American.

Q: At what point did that change for you?

A: As soon as I got off the ship. My name was originally Heinz. But when we got to America the guy told me that doesn’t sound American and changed my name to Henry, and that became my name.

Q: Do you think that this would have been different if you had left under different conditions?

A: No.

Q: Would you say that the process of immigrating affected you and the rest of your family similarly, or did either you or your parents seem to have more trouble integrating?

A: It was more difficult for them. I picked up the language faster. When I first came to the US I did my homework after school, and then I’d help my mother make little bracelets that she’d sell so we could support ourselves. My father shoveled snow off people’s sidewalks, and my brother got a newspaper route so that we never had to go on welfare.

Q: Did your family try to continue any traditions from your childhood associated with Austria?

A: No, none.

Q: Did you mostly speak German at home?

A: We spoke German at home pretty much until I was in my late teens.

Q: I know that both of your parents were originally from Poland, right?

A: Yes, but they had lived in Austria for a long time. My father lived in Austria beginning in 1928. He was 13 when he came from Poland. His parents had rented a farm in Poland because Jews couldn’t own land. My father was one of 8 siblings. They all immigrated to Vienna. There were lots of stores there called Schreiber that sold kitchenwares, like pots, pans, and cutlery because of all of his siblings.

Q: What was the process of becoming a citizen like?

A: We had to take a test, answer some questions and take an oath. That was in 1945, so I was 14 years old. My parents got it at the same time.

Q: Is there anything you would have changed aboutthe process?


A: For me it was fine the way it was.


Q: When you returned to Vienna to visit, did you feel any sense of belonging, or like it was ‘home’ in a way?


A: No. But surprisingly enough when I went in 1982, I still knew my way around the city. I remembered where everything was, as if I had never left. I just remembered one funny thing that happened when we were still in our original apartment. When the Nazis came all the buildings had Swastika flags on them, including ours. But one day the building superintendent noticed the one on our building was torn, and my mother had a sewing machine so he had my mother fix it.



Source:http://madeintoamerica.org