Category Archives: Memories-Childhood

Has Anybody Seen Miss Cahill?

The facade of Junior High School 143, John Peter Tetard JHS.

From 1954 until 1966, home was in the Kingsbridge neighborhood of Bronx, New York. Elementary school was P.S. 122, Marble Hill Elementary. Junior High School (grades 7,8, and 9) were spent in Junior High School 143. For me, Tetard was about 3/4 mile walk from our apartment on Sedgwick Ave, across the street from the Kingsbridge Veterans Adminstration Hospital.

What draws me to this piece of my story is the note in my previous post about the Liberty Mutual Insurance company making the Statue of Liberty a background for its sales pitch. Then there are Progressive Insurance Company’s nonsensical ads, which seem to reflect no interest in today’s public health crisis.

The string of these ads call to mind my formidable “social studies” teacher, perhaps 8th grade, who taught her students the valuable lessons of New York City life. But these lessons had to break through — to be kind — the lesser developed brains of 12 and 13 year-olds. Yet memory of her as a powerful presence turned out to be ever lasting. And embedded in my memory is the ditty we used to sing about Miss Cahill:

“Six foot two, hair of blue, has any body seen Ms. Cahill?”

We were not, of course, capable of fairness at that age, but the lessons she offered were also memorable: One must, out of courtesy to other subway riders, properly fold the New York Times as one reads the pages (fold each broad sheet in half length-wise, turn them against each other vertically, and then fold the length in half. There must be a You Tube video showing that somewhere); stock market listings in the business section must be read carefully, but all should remember that investments are long-term things, and one should not run one way or the other based on a day’s worth of trading; advertising serves a purpose, i.e., to inform readers about products so they can make informed decisions about purchases.

Am thinking Miss Cahill is spinning in her grave.

Reposting Thoughts of the Day 70 Years Ago that My Mother and I Arrived in New York City

Two years ago I offered thoughts on this momentous day in my life and the life of my mother as the US Naval Ship General Stuart Heintzelman arrived in New York City with some 800 WW II refugees from Eastern Europe. For my mother it marked the conclusion of an ordeal in survival begun with escape from Estonia in October 1944 as Soviet troops were closing in on Estonia. ( https://www.fanande.net?p=602 ) For me, about to be six, it was the arrival in a new world to be explored.

In that post of July 2018, I reflected on the state of the Trump administration’s thinking about immigration. Two years later, Covid-19 has given the administration opportunity to harden its position even more. It is deeply, deeply saddening to one who was a beneficiary of America’s generosity.

In rereading that post, I am reminded of the ideals that were espoused about the US immigrant community at the time and the welcoming tradition then said to have made new, prosperous lives possible. Of course, we learned long since that the welcome did not apply to everyone, and the values the welcome was said to have represented did not even apply to all who lived in this nation.

I would learn the limits of those values as I grew up and began to “see the world” as an NROTC midshipman in college during a summer spent on a US warship, the destroyer USS Beatty, DD 756. The eye-opener, as I believe I have noted here earlier, was the ship’s port call in Gulfport, Mississippi, in the summer of 1963. There, having lived in New York City since our arrival, I saw for the first time Jim Crow at work.

Today, I will admit to being disheartened in seeing how much remains to be done in that realm. I am also disheartened by the administration’s approach to migrants.

And, finally, I am disheartened by the way New York’s symbol of welcome has become a prop in an insurance company’s inane commercials, commercials that have the Statue of Liberty in the background but that have nothing to do with “liberty,” the company’s name. What immigrant who sailed past the statue can’t weep at the trivialization of the scene?

I should be (as I always am in other moments) happy about the opportunities that my mother and I had since June 25, 1950. We were blessed indeed. But today, sadness at the steady “passing” of those ideals we then both imagined embraced us and we in turn embraced feels overwhelming.

Next post on a better day.

Readers and friends, stay well.

andy

Stuck at Home: Catching Up on Images of Childhood

While I am doing work at home during the current crisis, the limits of the possible permit me to spend time doing other things. There is yardwork–a war of its own perhaps to be mentioned in another time.

For now, I have countless 35mm slides in our basement. So, I thought it might be fun to bring them into the digital world. I will try to do this mostly chronologically, but expect diversions.

I don’t know that I will have any deep thoughts here. Just reflections on memorable moments, moments illuminated by this long idle slide collection.

Part One: Father and Mother (Isa ja Ema) in the 1950s.

The collection, so far the earliest I have identified, contain a few images of my father and mother at times and places I remained home–an early latch key kid–another story I have toyed with.

The story I have told up to now has been of Ema’s devotion to me and to our mutual survival. As well, I have talked of Isa’s later arrival and his reunion with Ema and his pursuit of higher education and professional work in the United States. The image below shows the two together, with other Estonians at a small celebration of some kind–a marriage, a birthday, an anniversary? I’d bet on the former: flowers, champagne, a corsage of two.

Isa and Ema at a party
Isa and Ema at the far end of the table (in the right corner).
Another view of the party, Isa looking to be deep in some other thought.

For Isa, the early years in the United States involved work–eventually leading to a profession he had not been interested before the war. Music would have been his profession in Estonia. In the United States it turned elsewhere, work as a draftsman, schooling toward advanced degrees in civil engineering, and eventually computer programming early in the IT revolution. Below are two images that I can only speculate suggest an interest in the 50s in Columbia University, which had a major architecture program. Instead, he would eventually enter an eight-year night program at Cooper Union leading to a degree in engineering. It was a tuition-free program; Columbia’s would not have been. (Columbia rejected my application in 1961.)

Isa standing on the grounds of Columbia University.
Isa standing on the campus of Columbia University. Date unknown, probably mid-1950s. I would find myself there at commencement 2019, giving a presentation to the commissioning ceremony of the Columbia NROTC class in the Lowe Library, the building behind Isa.

Visible in the image above to the right of the Lowe Library is St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, a magnificent edifice that I would visit in 2019 when I participated in that event. Below during a lovely spring, Isa.

Isa t St. John the Divine Cathedral
A most impressive cathedral near Columbia University is St. John the Divine, by which Isa here stands.

Another view of Isa is in a visit to Battery Park. I imagine the view of the Statue of Liberty from there would have held great meaning in those early days of his life in New York. Fortunately, he did not live to see the television advertisements of the insurance company, Liberty Mutual, that have trivialized the great monument.

Battery Park
Isa and colleague and/or friend at Battery Park in New York City.

And finally, in this portion, I offer an image of Isa in front of the under-construction New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle in New York. The highly controversial project went up during 1954–56. I can only guess that at that point Isa was working for a drafting firm that had some share of responsibility for the project. One can’t say it would be lasting monument to anything. By 1986 it was gone. I remember it from the its years of existence as a destination for a pair of adolescent friends from the Bronx out to see the latest at the annual automobile show. The coliseum was also a feature of our journeys to New York Ranger hockey games at Madison Square Garden, just ten blocks down the street from the Columbus Circle subway station. That, too, would evaporate later, its name moved to a structure at Penn Station a mile south.

columbus circle
Isa and a colleague at Columbus Circle in NYC, in front of construction site of the New York Coliseum, most likely in 1955.

To be continued.

Ago Ambre’s “Goodbye Estonia,” presented on September 22, 2019, at the Commemoration of 75th Anniversary of Escapes from Estonia

Ago’s presentation on the 22nd, as I’d mentioned in my previous post, gave me a perspective my mother experienced but never shared in such detail. With Ago’s permission, I am placing it here. — av

The Great flight from Estonia 
by Ago Ambre

Shared September 22, 2019 – 75th Anniversary of the Great Refugee Flight of 1944

Persecutions, arrests, executions, deportations and the scorched earth policy carried out by destruction battalions of Communist party members and the Red Army were fresh memories that spurred a massive flight from the oncoming Soviet hell back in 1944.

How massive was it? Here it would be like 25 million people getting on the road at once to head for Canada or Mexico, and twice as many sought safety within the country.

The Great Flight was a disjointed journey. It was not a direct flight. There was flight within Estonia, and for many the flight continued in Germany, too. If you were not from Tallinn you had to come there from the south or the east. Coastal areas offered for some a chance for a perilous voyage in mostly small open boats, hundreds of them, across the stormy Baltic sea to Sweden. In Tallinn there was chance to escape to Germany.

I would place the beginning of the Great Flight in early 1944 when the Leningrad front collapsed and refugees from the East reached my hometown, Tartu. Little did we know that half a year later we would be walking in their shoes.

By June, the situation was painfully clear, the Russians were coming. There was a glimmer of hope that Finland would accept Estonian refugees. An office was supposed to open in Tartu to register teachers who would resettle in Finland. Well, my mother was a teacher, she discussed the matter with us, my grandmother and me. My father was arrested during the first Soviet occupation. He died in a Soviet prison. A second Soviet occupation would be as good as a death sentence for us. But nothing came of the Finnish solution. In any event, Finland was no safe haven. After making peace with the Soviet Union on September 3, Finland agreed to repatriate all Soviet citizens.

The picture of Soviet advances in Estonia as reported by the New York Times on 22 September 1944.

The Soviet Union also demanded that Allies carry out forceful repatriation of USSR citizens. That is something we found out when were in Germany. Thanks to the efforts of many good men and women the Americans and Brits agreed that we were citizens of Estonia, that Soviet occupation did not make us Soviet citizens.

All those who left then have their own stories. They all deserve to be told. I was asked to tell mine today,  on the 75th anniversary of that tragic event. The hero of my story is my mother. And her support was her mother. When they had to leave Tartu they made sure that I would leave with them.

I had been badly hurt in July doing obligatory farm work as a fourteen-year-old boy. I was hospitalized in Tartu but as air raids became a daily affair, patients were evacuated to Ulila, a place about 20 kilometers from Tartu. I was sedated most of the time, because my pains were simply intolerable. Then in August the patients were brought back to Tartu because the Soviet tanks had broken through and were about to overrun the area. See on left the map from the New York Times on September 22. For the full September 22 account, click here. (once the image appears, click again to enlarge.)

I was transported on a hospital bed in a cargo truck.

I remember the view of Viljandi highway—it was like a twisting living organism, made up of farm families with horse-drawn carriages loaded with furniture and such, with cows and horses in tow. People were fleeing on bicycles, and on foot. It was a sight I never forgot.

Back in Tartu panic broke out as the Soviet tanks were now rumored to be only twenty-five kilometers away. It was night already when mother came to the hospital and demanded I be released. She had secured places for us three on a truck. Dr. Linkberg, the hospital head, one of the best surgeons in Estonia, was adamant. I was in no condition to travel. I had very high fever, and needed daily procedures to withdraw quantities of pus from my injured knee. But mother prevailed.

My memory is blurry how I was placed on a stretcher and placed on the truck. But I remember well when the truck crawled up a hilly street toward the Tallinn highway, how people swarmed the truck, threw off the baggage. Desperation filled up every inch of the truck bed. My memory is even clearer of that trip in the night when a Soviet plane dropped flares on that crowded highway. All vehicles stopped. People sought shelter in ditches. I remember lying in the truck, watching the flares floating slowly toward the ground. And I waited for the attack. It came in the form of three bombs. Not much damage, but it surely was annoying.

Early morning the truck broke down at a school house, in a place called Äksi. By that time I was delirious. A man who no longer could stand my cries, forced a bottle of vodka down my throat. By morning I felt nothing, I was stone cold. Mother managed to get transport to a nearby rail station, Voldi. The small station was crowded with soldiers. A military physician came by, looked at me, and declared me unfit for travel. As he had just set up an aid station nearby, at Saadjärve, he offered to treat me. He put me in his ambulance, took me to the aid station which at the time had no other patients. He drained my knee, and did his best to stabilize me for two days.

All that time my mother and grandmother stayed in that crowded, dirty station. They had no idea where I was. But the good doctor brought me back to the Voldi station, and made sure we were placed on a train carrying wounded soldiers to Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. The wounded were in box cars, on stretchers on the floor. And the doors were open.

It was a rail journey like no other. I watched passing freight trains carrying heavy artillery tubes away from the front, toward the Port of Tallinn. Nearing Tallinn I had a view of ruins, only chimneys standing, reminders of the air raids on March 9.

A view of Tallinn after 9 March air raid. Provenance unknown.

At arrival at the Baltic Station in Tallinn, the wounded on their stretchers were lined up on the platform. The chief of a military hospital conducted a cursory inspection, and all men on stretchers were moved to a military hospital that was set up in a building in the suburb of Hiiu that once was a home for orphaned babies. And I wound up in that hospital. I was treated well. The operating room had three tables. I was treated there while wounded soldiers were also being operated on. I remember gory scenes when very young men were lying on their backs, with surgeons picking shrapnel from their intestines that were piled on their stomachs. They had been wounded on September 15 when a landing on a key Finnish island of Suursaari was repelled by the Finns, as required by the peace treaty with the Soviet Union. That failure opened the Baltic sea for the Red Fleet that had been bottled up for most of the war.

Purportedly scene of bombing attack just outside of Tallinn in August 1944. Date and provenance of photo unknown. As Ema told me I was born during an air raid on August 2nd, I can only wonder. –AV

Soon our time was up again. The Russians were coming. The military hospital was made ready for evacuation to Germany. I was given a choice, go to a civilian hospital in Tallinn, or be evacuated to Germany to meet an uncertain fate. My mother told me that the choice was up to me. I added up the score: hospitals in Tallinn were bereft of doctors and nurses, and there was no mercy to expect from the Communists. We agreed that the uncertainty awaiting us in Germany was preferable to the certainty that would await us in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Estonia. By then the Red Fleet had access to the Baltic sea. Soviet submarines and airplanes attacked even hospital ships.

For the New York Times account of that exodus and the Soviet attacks on the ships, click here to link to New York Times, 23 September 1944 report.

We traveled in a cargo ship that had a rather mixed cargo: munitions, gasoline, hospital equipment, and even cabbages. Plus the hospital’s nurses, few civilians, lots of Russian POWs, and and a couple hundred soldiers.

When we arrived in the Danzig port of Neufahrwasser, everybody left. We stayed in the cargo hold and waited for the morning. Suddenly flashlights beamed. Military police demanded, who are you. Refugees. Soon six Russians POWs were summoned, four carried my stretcher, and two carried my mother’s and grandmother’s suitcases. We were led into a camp behind barbed wire, put in a barracks, with me on the stretcher on the floor watching lice crawling up the support poles of three-tiered bunks where mother and grandmother were resting on bare boards in the top bunk.

Next morning a physician took a look at me, and hung a ticket on me. The ambulance driver was a good Samaritan. He knew the destination well. He tore up the ticket and instead drove us to neighboring Gotenhafen, and put me in a municipal hospital.The flight continued within Germany for another seven months. Because the Russians kept coming.

The horrors of communism were news to most Americans back in 1949. After all, Uncle Joe had been an ally. As a new arrival, I was asked about what went on in Europe before and after WWII. A lot of people said, it surely could not happen here. I believed it then. Today, I am not so sure.

Thank you, Ago. –Andres

To Close Out the Displaced Persons Law Story–April 1952

Through these combined efforts [US and German], more than 300,000 persons have found their hopes realized in the attainment of a new life in the United States. Americans have a peculiarly sympathetic feeling for persecuted people. From the very beginning of our history, those coming to the shores of our country were usually fleeing from the persecution of the  mind or body. —Samuel Reber,  Assistant High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, April 2, 1952.

The record of the United States Government and the American people in extending aid to the unfortunate of the world—the displaced by war, the refugees from political or religious persecution or simply the immigrant seeking freedom and opportunity is a proud one. —Robert J. Crockery, European coordinator of the US Displaced Persons Commission.

The words quoted above marked the departure from Bremerhaven, Germany, of the last European emigres under the provisions of the US Displaced Persons Law, as passed in 1948 and amended in 1950, while my mother and I were on the high seas between Germany and New York City.

The 42-year-old Polish Josef Zylka with his wife Ursula and daughters Ursula and Beate, on 2 April 1952, before the departure at the quay in Bremerhaven

The quota provided by the law  was met with the departure on April 2nd  from Bremerhaven of the SS General Ballou . The last to board was the  Josef Zylka family, pictured here.  He had been captured by the Germans when they attacked Poland in 1939 and held in slave labor camps thereafter. (Image ©  dpa picture alliance / Alamy Stock Photo)

The ship would receive a ceremonial welcome on arrival in New York City ten days later, and selected families were treated to a visit with President Truman in the White House a day later. The Zylkas would move on to Chicago from there.


How distant the spirit of that day seems today, in July 2018!

Another Marine Immigration Story

Marine Basic School classmate John Wegl (B Company [TBS 1-67]  July–November 1966) wrote me to comment on my last post about the climate in the United States surrounding emigration of refugees from Europe after WW II.  After this introductory note, I will reproduce his comment/actually a brief summary of his story. It is a story that begs for a memoir—in many ways much more than mine might qualify—because it speaks poignantly not only to the experience of families displaced by World War II, which it most certainly does, but also to the strains on families caused by the Cold War, which extended John’s separation from his parents for more than a decade!

Intro: By my reckoning, our Basic School class had four members who were born outside of the United States, all in Europe. In addition to me, there was John (born in Romania in an ethnic German family), John O. (born in the Netherlands–and only first name given because I don’t have his permission to use it), and Matthew McKnight (born in Wales, of a US soldier and English nurse, and killed in Vietnam in October 1967 [and discussed in https://www.fanande.netwp-admin/?=571 — “And One Thing Leads to Another, and Another“).

John’s abbreviated story, offered with his permission, follows below.


Thanks for sharing [Andy].  It was a different time and a different national mindset.  My parents came over in May 1950 along with my six-month old sister—flying in through New York and then straight to St. Louis.  They were sponsored by a family relative who had been in St. Louis for quite some time and arranged for their flight, housing, and a job for my father, and that is another story onto itself.

My parents had been reunited in Germany after the war—my dad coming from a POW camp in England to Germany and my mother from a slave labor camp in the Ukraine (then part of the  Soviet Union), where she and about 70,000 other ethnic Germans from Romania were deported in January 1945.  Quite a few books/articles have been written about that tragedy.

My mother had gotten sick, and instead of being sent home, she was shipped to East Germany in 1947.  She eventually worked her way into West Germany to join my dad in ’48.  I was with my grandparents in Romania and finally got permission to join my parents in the states in 1958.  Ten years to the date I landed in New York, I landed in Da Nang.

While in college and in the Marine Corps, I wrote letters to my grandparents–mailed them to my parents, and they sent them on.  My maternal grandfather died while I was in college.  My paternal grandfather was killed by Tito’s partisans while trying to escape the Russian advance, and my grandmother and my father’s sister and her family were ordered to go back home.  That grandmother died in the early 1970s.  My maternal grandmother, who essentially raised me, got to Germany in the early 1980s as part of Germany’s “freedom purchase” of Germans in Romania.  I got to visit with her twice while I was still on active duty and then saw her one more time after I retired before she passed away.  I did get to her funeral—she outlived both my parents.

I have not written a memoir—started a few years ago but got overwhelmed with other commitments and have not picked up on it.  Maybe after my tenure on the local board ends in December I will start up again.  — John Wegl


John would go on to serve a career in the Marine Corps. Among his duties was working in USMC Recruiting Advertising Branch (1969–1972), as the Marine Corps ramped up its “We Need a Few Good Men” recruiting campaign. Featured were these two posters—which I suspect could be could part of his memoir’s title.

 

 

Reflections on My Mother’s and My Arrival in New York City, June 25, 1950

( I  edited this post (the beginning and the very end) for clarity on June 29th.)

This posting has been brewing since Monday, June 25th. I thought it would be easy and quick—a kind of stroll through the times surrounding our arrival in June 1950. Instead, with immigration having become such a complicated matter—the supposed “crises” on our border with Mexico and in Europe—that I felt the need to dig deeper and look into the genesis of the law , the Displaced Persons Law of 1948, that made possible our arrival.  Basically, I wanted to know if US values concerning immigration during the days surrounding the passage of the law in June 1948 truly looked like the values I had come to believe our arrival in 1950  symbolized.  As it is today, the answer is complicated.

I had become accustomed through my life to saying that the generosity of the American people was evident in  the passage of the Displaced Persons Law of 1948, which allowed 200,00 European refugees to emigrate from camps in Europe to the United States.  (see https://www.fanande.netwp-admin/post.php?post=69)

The fact of that law, and a further liberalization of it two years later (the number allowed to enter was doubled and restrictions in the 1948 law were reduced), has been thrown at me by those aligned with the present administration’s anti-immigrant stance who object to my expressions of empathy for Central America’s migrants with the words, “You WERE LEGAL!”

Maybe so, but I can’t help but think that people who most loudly shout those words don’t really know—and most likely wouldn’t care if they knew—how much they sound like those in 1948 and later who opposed the entrance of Europeans displaced from their homes and dispossessed of virtually everything they had owned.

Following is a New York Times report of the floor debate in the House of Representatives on June 10, 1948 on the Fellows Bill, named after Frank Fellows, the Republican from Maine—let me repeat that, “…the Fellows Bill, named after Frank Fellows, the Republican from Maine”—who had the endorsement of the Democratic White House (From the New York Times (June 10, 1948):

The debate today centered primarily on the quality and character of the DPs who would enter the country under proposed law. The 1,300,000 persons in Europe officially classified as DPs were described in speeches as everything from “the best” to “the worst,” from “the scum of all Europe” to the “cream of the crop.”

In spite of the harsh language and purple rhetoric, it was generally predicted late this afternoon that some measure providing for at least 200,000 refugees would soon be approved by the House, probably tomorrow.

The Senate had passed its own DP bill on June 2, going into a late night session to accomplish it. The measure Is objectionable to most of the supporters of displaced persons legislation, however, on the grounds it imposes too many restrictions and discriminates against the Jews in favor of the Baltic Protestants.

The House bill, introduced by Representative Frank Fellows, Republican of Maine, is considered more generous in its treatment of the DP problem, according to the authorities, and omits the discriminatory sections said to be in the Senate measure.

For every attack on the bill, there was an immediate and ardent defense. Representative Eugene E. Cox, Democrat of Georgia, was the first violent detractor of the bill, terming the DPs it would aid “the scum of Europe.” He expressed doubt that “20 percent of the whole number” would be satisfactory immigrants.

Another Democrat, Ed Gossett of Texas, was as strong in his denunciation of the bill as Mr. Cox. The Texan asserted that many of the DPs seeking refuge here ae “bums, criminals, subversives, revolutionists, crackpots, and human wreckage.”

———–

The measure would pass and be reconciled with an earlier Senate version, which contained more restrictions, including the obligation that 30 percent of DPs come from the Baltic States [I corrected this figure from 50 percent] —a measure seen to discriminate against Catholics, because of the largely Protestant makeup of Baltic church communities. Another required that 30 percent of visas be granted to farmers–or at least potential farmers in the United States.   These obligations would eventually be reduced and the quota increased in a revised law in 1950–passed as my mother and I whiled away the hours on the SS General Heintzleman.

Of course, little, if any, of that was known to us.  For us, arrival in 1950 would be a joy. No cameras or journalists covered our arrival–we had become a routine, but the arrival of the first of the DPs to reach New York under the law on October 31, 1948 made the front page of the Times and it was captured on film. There is much more that is complicated about the day and the attitude of Americans (and especially their politicians) to the newly arrived and arriving refugees that I will save for another time. For the moment, let me attempt to share the joy, evident in the October 31 NY Times account of the arrival of the SS General William Black the day before with 813 refugees from Europe—and films—totally unexpectedly found showing the occasion.

Much more can be said about the fears evident in the United States on that day and the day my mother and I arrived, but I can save those for another day. For now, let the sense of relief and joy evident in the below speak to the feelings of two Displaced Persons, Hedvig Marie Steinberg and Andres Steinberg (to become Vaart after my father’s arrival, a year to the day later).

New York Times, 31 October 1948

 U.S., City Welcome Ship with 813 DP’s, 1st Under New Act

Harbor Whistles Greet Army Transport Bringing Tyranny to Homes Here

Group Shows Gratitude

Clark Speaks for the President in Ceremony on Deck—Mayor and Cardinal Spellman Also Attend

By Kenneth Campbell

The first group of homeless Europeans to arrive under the Displaced Persons Law came up New York harbor yesterday past the Statue of Liberty amid the thunder of welcoming whistles. [and sprays of water from firefighting tugs]

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675074156_USS-General-W-M-Black_Statue-of-Liberty_skyline_Displaced-Persons

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675074153_Displaced-Persons_USS-General-W-M-Black-AP-135_waving-from-deck_arrival

There were 813 men, women and children in the group. They came from former police state countries once under the Nazi heel and now under Russian dominations. They were on their way to many parts of the United States and Canada where, as their spokesman said they would find “the miracle of second birth.”

As they lined the rail of the Army transport Ge. William Black, they were a little tearful, very polite and quite stunned as the greatest city of the western world arose before them.

They saw the Statue of Liberty through the leaping spray from the nozzles of two municipal fire boats. The skyline of lower Manhattan was hung with autumn mist as they passed on their way up the North River to Pier 61 at West Twenty-first Street.

Here, with the Empire State Building in full view to show them how a city can seem to stand up they were welcomed by national, state and city officials and representatives of the Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths.

Attorney General Tom Clark, representing President Truman; Edward Corsi, chairman of the State Commission on Displaced Persons; Mayor O’Dwyer and Cardinal Spellman were there to greet them. Mr. Corse represented Governor Dewey.

Everybody was pleasant to the newcomers. Nobody pushed them around or made them line up. Instead they had a chance to see someone else pushed around for a chance. The newspaper reporters, newsreel and radio men and photographers were subjected to the confused and scrambled procedure that characterizes such events, however well planned.

The welcoming ceremonies were held on the upper deck of the transport. Ugo Carusi, representing the Federal Displaced Persons Commission, presided. The newcomers were crowded on another section of the upper deck where they were photographed until their heads swam. The ceremonies were in English, which only a few of the new arrivals could understand. They waved and cheered and expressed their thanks at what seemed to them to be the proper moments.

Clark Speaks for Truman

Attorney General Clark said:

“Harry S. Truman, the President of the United States, bids you a hearty welcome to our shores—the land of your new-found home. The President greets you as the Pilgrims of 1948 entering this historic gateway of freedom as did the Pilgrims of 1620/ You too came here to escape persecution.

“This is a historic event—for this ship is the vanguard of a fleet of transports that will transform the victims of hatred, bigotry, religious intolerance and wars into happy and peaceful souls.”

After expressing the regret that all the military transports of the world could not be used on similar peaceful missions, Mr. Clark said:

“Do not think of yourselves as strangers in a strange land. You are following the path of millions who have come before you. The fact that you are being admitted to our land is evidence that our people have not forgotten that our nation was founded by immigrants, many of who fled oppression and persecution.

“This warm reception by some many Americans who have taken time out of their busy hours to meet you and to lend guidance on out ways to your new home is characteristic of our democratic way of life. They and the 144,000,000 Americans in our land wish you well. In America you will get out of life what you put into it. You take on here the responsibility of proving to the world that America’s confidence in you was not misplaced. You, too, can—and I am sure you will—contribute much to America.

”You can be strong and courageous in its behalf—and soon, I hope, each of you will be granted the most precious possession in the world—American Citizenship.

“God bless you and keep you and grant you Godspeed!”

Dewey Sends Message

A letter from Governor Dewey was read by Mr. Corsi. It said:

“I want personally to welcome the families on the General William Black. These potential citizens will find that here they have the opportunity to earn their living in peace, to worship God by the tenets of their own religion and to raise their children in the true spirit of freedom and democracy.”

Mayor O’Dwyer said:

“New York City is glad to have you here. I am glad to see you getting your first breath of good New York air. Many of you will stay here—and I will all of you good. You will like it in New York.”

And then the Mayor threw out his arms and said: “Welcome to New York!” His gesture was understood by the newcomers, who cheered him loudly.

Cardinal Spellman did not speak to the group. Before the ceremony he said to newspaper men:

“We Americans must remember that these people must be treated with consideration, sympathy and understanding. Just putting their foot on United States soil doesn’t give them orientation to all America means.”

Victor Fedial, a young White Russian, spoke on behalf of the new arrivals. He had a prepared speech but he became overcome with emotion and could only say:

“This is the miracle of our second birth We have come here to enjoy the benefits of democracy and freedom.”

No Standing in Line

Every care had been taken to make sure that the new arrivals would be greeted with Friendliness and warmth rather than with the official coldness and long periods of standing in line to which they had been subjected in the past. They did not go through Ellis Island as have millions of other immigrants. They were checked off the boat with care to prevent duplication or confusion.

ON the pier they were greeted by uniformed representatives of the official recognized travel agencies who arranged for the to go to the places where they have informed the authorities they have homes and work ready for them;

Of the 813 displaced persons arriving on the transport yesterday, 197 were children und sixteen. There were 388 Poles, 214 Balts, 53 Czechoslovaks and the remainder were classed as stateless persons.

Seven religious denominations were represented, as follows: 491 Roman and Greek Catholics, 161 Jewish, 75 Russian and Greek Orthodox, sixty-seven Protestants and eighteen unknown.

The occupation skills were as follows: Eighty-three farmers, eighty tailors and allied crafts, forty technicians, twenty-seven interpreters, fourteen domestics, thirteen accountants and bookkeepers, thirteen engineers and eight nurses. There were also carpenters, locksmiths, masons, barbers, butchers, and other assorted trade including one professional ballet dancer.

Raymond M. Hilliard, chairman of the Mayor’s Committee for Displaced Persons, was in charge of arrangements at the pier and on the boat. Considerable inconvenience was caused to newspaper reporters, photographers, radio men and newsreel cameramen by seemingly conflicting orders. The United States Coast Guard and the office of the Collector of the Port issued credentials which said the bearers could board The Transport. But when the newspaper men and the associates came to the side of the transport it was explained that the ship was under the jurisdiction of the Army and that they would not be permitted to board.

AV Afterword

And finally, I should add that on looking back through my sampling of Estonian, European, including Baltic, and other immigrants I know of the period–it is safe to say a goodly more than 20 percent managed life well in their new country.

For evidence of that, one need only look at the marvelous book on Estonians in America written by Priit Vesilind. I blogged about it last year:

A Miracle Delivered to Our Doorstep

It is a great testimonial to resilience and faithfulness to family, friends, heritage, and new home.

As to the US public mood in 1948: divided, though apparently less so than it is today.  But in 1948 and then in 1950, the good won the day. For that I am eternally grateful–and maybe a bit hopeful that the United States will side with its good angels again today and the days ahead.


More another day about the climate in June 1950—hopefully with fewer mistakes.

 

av (June 29, 2018)

 

 

A Miracle Delivered to Our Doorstep

As an Estonian-American (some would say a lapsed one), I am a small contributor to the Estonian American National Council, which represents the interests and heritage of Estonians and their offspring living in the United States. Its most recent mailing urging renewed contributions contained a spot announcing the availability of its recently published book, “Exiles in a Land of Promise: Estonians in America, 1945–1995. ($90 plus shipping.)

The book arrived yesterday—the miracle of the subject line. It is a professionally done masterwork, one that should interest—actually enthrall—those still-living emigres in that community of exiles and their descendants.  Indeed, the inside title page, with its image of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia,  taken from the harbor on September 22, 1944, set my heart a pounding. I immediately imagined my mother, with her two-month old son (me) in October 1944, taking in that same view as the ship on which we were embarked pulled away for its voyage to Germany—and away from a Soviet army soon to occupy all of Estonia.

Although written and published well before November 2016, the book’s first chapter speaks directly to today’s climate surrounding refugees and their immigration into the United States. “Who knew?” is the question that explodes from the book’s first chapter, “Arrival of the Viking Boats.” It recounts, based on solid research, the voyages and arrival in the late 1940s in the United States (all illegal) of Estonians and other Balts on sail boats that took weeks to cross the Atlantic. Rudimentary instruments and elementary maps and courageous pilots (and passengers) brought most across the wide Atlantic. Though the numbers researchers offer vary, one cited in the book says “46 boats left Sweden before 1949; seventeen landed in the US; and ten reached Canada. Six ended up in South Africa and five in Argentina. Three stopped in England, and one headed south to Brazil. Two others were lost without a trace. Perhaps 250 Estonians reached American shores after grueling, storm-lashed voyages.”  Images accompanying this chapter suggest that calling these vessels “Viking Boats” grossly overstates their size.

But never mind, the most salient points of this chapter are that the passengers of this little collection of boats became illegal aliens in the United States and their arrival sparked a mixed, though ultimately favorable, reception. Some saw an invasion of potential Marxist subversives. Others saw the Estonian displaced persons (DPs) as “Delayed Pilgrims,” the narrative that won the day and became a key factor, the book argues,  in opening the doors to legal immigration by an act of Congress that President Truman signed in 1948.  As a beneficiary in 1950 with my mother (and a year later my father) of that act, I find this story both eye-opening and breath-taking.

From that beginning, the book settles into a well thought-out rhythm (beautifully illustrated and laid out over more than 550 pages) that addresses the political context in which the emigre populations lived in their various communities around the United States and the political movements within which its hopes evolved and were pronounced and ultimately realized with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the restoration of independence.

As a New York City-centric Estonian-American who empty-headedly figured all Estonian Americans existed within sight of the Empire State Building and who met to eat and drink at the Estonian House on 34th Street, I now beg forgiveness  for my lack of awareness of communities of Estonians from Alaska to Cucamonga, California, to Fresno to Minnesota to Chicago and to Alabama and to Connecticut and places in between, which are described in this culmination of twenty years of work.

In addition, the book provides a wealth of material on Estonian-American organizations of all sorts, religious, musical, military, Scouts, and more. It contains reference material and extremely well done graphics displaying the distribution and number of Estonian-Americans and more.

Much more could be said, but let me end here with the most hearty congratulations to all involved in this work, including the leaders of the Council and the crew led by Editor Priit Vesilind.

And, most of all, a sincerely heartfelt Thank You!!

For information on the Council and the book, go to: http://www.estosite.org/

 

 

 

Ema’s (mother’s) Documents

My mother’s (Ema’s) documents are more spare. These documents from Clem suggest an evolution in thinking about the realities of my mother’s life and what was needed to make an emigration possible and a reunion possible  (eventually) with my father, who “officially” was not at all my father.

Looking at these documents now, it seems clear to me that in the time between October or November 1944, when my Ema carried her new-born (me) onto a ship in Tallinn harbor bound for Germany and the time she began to prepare for emigration to the United States some five years later,  all official documents from life in Estonia were gone. She had no birth, citizenship, or travel documentation of her own. She had no certificate of birth for me.

Since Ema and I never really talked about all this–at least that I now remember–I can only guess at the reasons. My guesses follow:

-She left her documents behind in the rush to leave Tallinn in October 1944 as Soviet forces were closing in on the city.

–The documents were destroyed or confiscated by some authority.

–She  purposely destroyed or disposed of them during the effort to move from the Soviet side of occupation to the west side of occupation after the war.  I favor this explanation because Ema told me of having to lie about her destination so that she would be instructed to return to the West, where she said she had come from because migrants were prohibited from moving from one side of the nascent Iron Curtain to the other. Documents establishing her as a resident of the new Soviet side would have  kept her there–that is, made it harder for her to lie about where she was coming from.

Hedvig-Steinberg-IdentityPaper-Full-webWithout official documents of any kind to establish her identity, place of residence in Estonia, and connections in Estonia, Ema was required to depend on the testimony of others to substantiate her claims. These claims she recorded in the long document on the left in English, which was attested to by friends and sealed by a designated Estonian official of the displaced persons camp in which she was located.

There was also the matter of Ema’s marriage to August Steinberg in 1937. Before seeing these documents I knew nothing other than Steinberg’s surname–it was Ema’s and mine when we arrived in the United States, and I knew that he had been her first marriage.  She told me August Steinberg disappeared early in the war, perhaps with the Soviet occupation in 1940. Several things might have explained this disappearance. The most common was Soviet practice of arresting and shipping to Siberia people who posed threats to its rule.  He might also have been lost in some combat action. Or he might have left Estonia and disappeared for other, perhaps political or personal reasons.

In any event, by 1943, when Ema had entered into a romantic relationship with my father, there was almost no chance that Steinberg would reemerge and even less chance that any authority would officially declare him dead and thus terminate the marriage.

Hedvig-Steinberg-Divorce-Decree-WebThis Ema attended to by filing for and receiving a divorce in Germany in 1949. (The document to the left).

Emotionally, this cannot have been easy for Ema in an age when illegitimate children took considerable explaining or serious efforts at concealment of truth.

So, at least, Ema had attended to her identity and had officially ended her first marriage, sufficient to gain a slot for emigration to the United States in 1950 (25 June arrival), with the sponsorship of an Estonian friend who had reached the United States a couple of years before. I can’t be sure who this friend was, but two candidates come to mind. One was Helga Rohtla, who was close to us–and who I think helped us to our first apartment in New York City in the Washington Heights part of the city. The other was Magda, who lived in Long Island City. She was unmarried then, but she was would eventually marry an Estonian emigre who lost this wife and two children in the Soviet bombing of refugee ships in the Baltic in 1944. (I think we were in another ship in that convoy that was attacked.)

There remained the matter of my father. Who sponsored him (was it Ema or someone else) I do not know.  My father arrived a year to the day after we arrived–25 June 1951.

In my mind, this is an extraordinary story of  love and loyalty. What bond kept my father to Ema and me after my conception in 1943? How many opportunities did my father have to abandon us before he arrived in the United States nearly seven years after I was born–and as far as I knew, seldom, if ever,  meeting over those years. How many excuses to ignore us could he have manufactured?

MarriageCertificate-1952-WebSo my father came and within six months (on Ema’s 39th birthday) had formally knotted their matrimonial ties, with Magda’s signature on the church wedding certificate (above).

HedvigVaart-Citizenship-Certificate-webLooking back at this post, I realize I missed a rather large point. In addition to the reunion of 1951 and the marriage of 1952, US citizenship was an undoubted goal. There was no chance of ever returning to Estonia, and we all knew it keenly.  The result, formal citizenship for Ema and Isa in 1957. (I would follow a few years later.) Ema’s certificate on the left.

What more can I say about this relationship, which lasted until February 1980, when Ema fell to a stroke?

 

 

 

 

Reflections on Parents’ Papers

The stories and images of the refugee crisis occasioned these days  by the fighting in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East are heart wrenching.  So were the scenes of refugees escaping Southeast Asia at the end of the long war there in 1975 (addressed in my last post in April of this year).  Both brought to mind thoughts of the situation in Europe and Asia during and after the Second World War.  One need not know too much about history to imagine, as one strolls backward down an historical timeline, the many times such scenes have been repeated in the history of mankind.

But for the moment, my passive participation as an infant, toddler, and five- and six-year old during and after WW II came to mind as my late father’s dear friend and care giver Clem mailed from Vermont a collection of aged documents she recovered from some hidden stash of my father’s belongings. Never having seen them before, they bring to mind moments in life during that period (including moments before my birth) for my  father, Albert Vaart, and my mother, Hedvig Marie Steinberg, her married name from a marriage that took place in 1937 (when she was 24) to a man, August Steinberg, who was 16 years older than she.

In the next two posts, I will introduce the documents Clem sent, which, in a general sense, I believe reflect elements of wartime and refugee experience common to all times. I will offer my take on them, and invite anyone from that time more knowledgeable than I to comment.

For those not familiar with my story, do visit my second post here Marking A Less Noticed 60th Anniversary in a World Unhinged and my third, Reflections on Father, Albert Vaart.

———————————-

A General Observation

Assuming both my mother and father did their best to preserve documents of this period and some more thorough stash doesn’t exist, this is an unsurprisingly ragtag collection. Bits are surprising, especially the survival of my father’s internal “passport” for Estonia (1936-1943) and his gymnasium (middle-high school) report card from 1930.  None of my mother’s documents predate her arrival in Germany in the period 1944-45.

Presumably, my father, having moved in a relatively orderly fashion in 1943 or 1945 to join a German Luftwaffe fighter squadron in Germany,  had a chance to pack some papers. Though he was shot down and hospitalized well away from his squadron’s headquarters in early 1945, he seems to have had delivered to him some of his possessions.

To state the obvious, the above no doubt describes the documentary plight of most refugees at any point in time.

———————————-

My father, Albert Vaart (Born, 5 November 1917)

The documents in this package are a report on his gymnasium class of 1930; an internal travel document with notations (four of them)  from 1936 to November 1943; an English-language document that affirms his discharge from the German air force, the Luftwaffe; an entirely German-language document that appears to establish the particulars of his life that would be pertinent to emigration consideration.

AlbertVaartPapers_1930-GymnasiumReportCardThe gymnasium report suggests my father was a ho-hum student. That it is prepared in German is a bit puzzling. By 1930, the historical German influence on Estonia would have receded. His performance in gymnasium, only a bit more impressive than my days in college, hints at a reason he was not more angry about my relative mediocrity as a student.

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport-1The travel document, was unexpected. That my father managed to preserve it is fascinating. That it was a requirement of the day, seems a bit surprising, but, given Estonia’s security environment, perhaps it is not surprising residents were obliged to check in with travels from city or town to another location. It appears, however, that exit stamps were unnecessary. The above and following images show the entire marked content of this document.

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_2-web

 

 

 

 

 

The page after the first shows basic information–birthdate and home location.

 

 

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_3-web

My father’s image is from 1936.

 

 

 

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_4-web More basic data, follows the pages with the image, apparently, though a bit hard for me to define.

 

 

 

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_5-webThe first actual, as far as I can tell, officially stamped and noted travel, in 1937 appears on the page with the red stamps.

 

 

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_6-webTravel to Tallinn recorded from 1939, August 1940, and 1942 appears on the following pages, without ornamental, colorful stamps. Given the circumstances of the day, these two pages are symbolic of the endurance of bureaucratic processes in the face of upheaval.  In 1939, Estonia was still independent. By August 1940, it was occupied by the Soviet Union as a result of the Ribbentrop/Molotov Pact of 1939–yet the recording of travel continued unchanged.

Albert-Vaart-Internal-Passport_Page_7-webThe last entry, a single one on the left side of the book, is, the last notation in the book. It shows an entry into Tallinn in November 1943. My father was by then, I am sure, in the Luftwaffe. He seemed to have gotten home leave and went to Tallinn, presumably to visit his romantic interest, my mother, who he had met by virtue of her employment as a secretary in an Estonian Air Force office. I materialized in August 1944. Hmmm?

Having been downed (my father said, by a gunner in a Russian tank) and fortunately been picked up badly wounded (by an unfortunate parachute escape from his FW-190) by friendly German forces, he was transported to a German military hospital near Munich.

The war’s end brought a new beginning of sorts for my father–and the creation of a new set of critical documents, two of which are included here.

AlbertVaartDischargePaper-FrontThe first, was an  English language document, certified by an American officer, declaring my father’s discharge from the German air force. This was a necessary step in the denazification process that allowed him to play roles in the displaced persons camps of the time and to make him eligible for eventual consideration for entry into the United States.

AlbertVaartIdentityTestimony-p1The second was a document that would support assertions of his identity. The image to the left and the following two images appear to be efforts to fully establish his identify–a judgment dependent on a full translation, now underway.

 

AlbertVaartIdentityTestimony-p2

Page 2.

 

 

 

 

 

AlbertVaartIdentityTestimony-p3Page 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will stop here. The next post will show my mother’s documents.