Kay talks about her family’s story

Some of the experiences of families in American Passage raised questions about my family’s journey and generated discussion among siblings. Both of my parents came to the U.S. separately from Germany to escape extreme poverty and starvation. My father worked for a while on a farm and had to eat some of the seed for planting to survive. My mother foraged in the potato fields. Both of them came from families with a lot of children, and because my mother was the oldest daughter, she had to leave to support the family. My father tried to get into the military but was rejected because of a heart condition. Both came from tiny towns in central Germany. They traveled to the port of Bremen, where my mother was detained for a while because she was anemic. My father was apprenticed for a while to a butcher, and he came to American in 1928. My mother came in 1933 on a consular passport, because she was a domestic worker in the consul’s home. After the consul returned to Germany she got an immigrant passport. I don’t know if they came through Ellis Island.

Both of their families, almost everyone, was killed in WWII. One family was from Dresden, which was destroyed by Allied bombing. After they left Germany they never saw their families again.

When my mother says “When we sailed into New York,” there is a tremor in her voice.

This was what America was to them, a country that had everything.