I really do not remember very much.
I was six years old when we left, and probably I should remember more than I do, but I might
have a mental block because times were not the happiest then, and maybe I blocked it
all out.
I do have a memory of the Nazi soldiers coming knocking on the door, and my mother, I must
have been maybe four years old, I do remember my mother telling me I was not to speak.
And they came in and searched the house.
I think after that, I do not remember.
I know that we left, I think we went to Vienna and left from Vienna to the United States.
I do not remember the trip on the ship, I have a picture of it, I know I was there.
I do not remember it.
I do remember when we arrived here.
We came in June 1938, and my mother had two brothers living here who helped us come over.
And I must tell you that my mother told me over the years that had it not been for her
Christian friends in Schleining, we would not have gotten out.
So when she first came here, she could not speak English.
She went to work as a helper to an old lady who spoke Jewish, which was similar to German,
and my mother was able to communicate.
That was a very hard time for me because she had to be there all the time.
She only came home on the weekend, and I had never been without my mother before.
I was six years old, and it was June, so I was going to start school in September, so
my uncles spent the summer trying to teach me English.
And I met some other little girls there, and I learned it quickly enough.
But I was different when I went into first grade.
I did not look like the American children that went to first grade, and my English was
not certainly as perfect as theirs.
And I think I became very shy at that time.
I was afraid to speak.
I was afraid somebody would laugh at me.
My mother handmade all my clothing, which was totally different from what the American
children were wearing.
I was self-conscious, I became very shy, and I do not think I was that way before.
But I adjusted pretty well.
People were nice.
Most people were very kind, even the children.
I was ashamed to be spoken to in German.
I do not like to think about that now, because I might have heard my grandmother's feelings
or my mother's feelings without even knowing it, but I guess I was very self-conscious about
it.
It is one thing I remember quite clearly, this girl.
There was a water fountain in the schoolyard, and it was broken.
I did not know it.
I went to get a drink, and this girl was standing there, and she said, you broke that.
I am going to tell the teacher you are going to be in big trouble.
Well, for weeks, I did not tell anyone.
I did not tell my mother.
I just could not go to sleep at night.
I was so afraid that something terrible was going to happen to me.
I might have associated it with the Nazis, I do not know.
But in a six-year-old's mind, this girl had this thread hanging over.
She threatened to tell on me and not get into big trouble.
The lady came out of the house, and in my broken German, I tried to explain to her that
I think I was born in this house, and I was six years old when I left.
She looked at me and she said, are you Marika?
She was my little friend.
She said, this was not the house.
She pointed, she showed us the house where it was.
She said, I used to walk over there all the time and we would play together.
It is really hard to describe.
It is a very, very emotional thing.
It was an unbelievable thing.
It is like I am in a dream.
It does not seem real.
It does not seem real that I am in Schleining, a place that I do not remember, but I know
I was born here.
I know I played on these streets, my mother was here, my father was here, my grandmother.
I brought pictures along just for the background so I can see where they sat and where they
went.
I have not gotten around to doing that yet.
I guess it is a once in a lifetime thing.
