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publisher's notebook

My Mother’s Story

S

Arthur Horwitz

ally Horwitz would have had
a lot to say about Donald
Trump, terrorism, ISIS, what it
means to be a refugee, and the hope
and promise of America. She would
have insisted that our country have
secure borders and conduct exten-
sive background checks on those
seeking to enter it as refugees. She
would also have great empathy for
the plight of Syrian refugees who
are trapped in a bloody and hate-
ful conflict, and pray that America
could be both strong and compas-
sionate in offering many of them a
safe, new future.
My mother passed away two
years ago in West Bloomfield,
but with the anniversary of her
January 1945 liberation from the
Czestochowa concentration camp
and the implementation last Friday
of President Donald Trump’s order
indefinitely barring Syrian refugees
from entering the country and
restricting travel by people from
seven Muslim-majority countries as
a backdrop, I’d like to share her
recollections as a homeless, state-
less refugee who survived the
Holocaust and traveled alone — at
age 17 — to America.

SALLY’S STORY
“It was July 16, 1949, my 17th birth-
day just has passed. ‘What am I
doing here on this ship crossing
the Atlantic?’ I am feeling despair-
ingly alone as the Marlin Marlene

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Arthur M. Horwitz
Publisher / Executive Editor
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F. Kevin Browett
Chief Operating Officer
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plods the ocean toward the United
States. Only a few Jews are on board
this troopship, loaded to the bul-
warks with thousands of displaced
persons, mostly Ukrainians. I peer
over the deck at the water’s rushing
wake, thinking, ‘Would my life ever
be stable?’ What is about to face me
in a new country, in an unknown
city?
“It had been 10 years of horror, of
constant danger and ever-present
death since my world had broken
down. All my family, except for me
and my two sisters, had not lasted
out, neither had most of the Jews
from throughout Europe. It had all
started with the divebombing of my
hometown in Poland, Zwolen. It
was Sept. 3, 1939, and our first sign
that World War II had befallen us.
The Holocaust with its destruction
of the Jewish people followed soon
after. I and my sisters had amaz-
ingly been together through all the
years of near starvation, disease
and constant danger. From the
crowded ghetto to the slave labor
potato farm to the concentration
camps, we had survived.
“The retreating Nazi army had
abandoned us in the Czestochowa
concentration camp from where we
had been freed by the Soviet forces.
Although we had been freed, the
chaos in Poland, along with Russian
despotic misrule, had hastened
our need to leave Eastern Europe
and its developing Iron Curtain.

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Our own experience requires us to be
vigilant in protecting those who are
oppressed.

To reach a safe haven at Bamberg
in the American Zone of Occupied
Germany, we had wended our
exhausting way over the mountain-
ous borders of Czechoslovakia and
Austria.
Four years later, at last, the
American government had eased its
immigration rules. We could enter
the country, provided papers could
be signed indicating that a place to
live and the promise of a job was
ready for us — this was done by
benefactors in New Haven, Conn.
As a single young woman, I had
set sail alone, without my newly
married sisters, from the port of
Bremerhaven.
“After almost two weeks at sea,
it seemed as if the ocean crossing
was going to take forever. Just at the
point of weariness, an exhilarating
site is coming into view on the dis-
tant horizon. All on board, even the
seasick, rushed to the deck. There,
to be seen, was an imposing figure
with an outstretched arm holding
a gigantic torch. For certain, this
was the fabled Statue of Liberty
of which I had heard so much. A
chill raced through my body. At

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last a symbol of welcome awaited
me after so many years of being
unwanted. It was telling us, ‘You are
safe, you are free, no one can harm
you here.’ Dusk is falling, but the
‘new world’ is beckoning with its
flickering lights in the distance, too
numerous to be counted.
“The Marlin Marlene headed
straight for the docks in as much
as Ellis Island no longer was a
necessary stopover for newcom-
ers. I cleared customs easily for I
had nothing, absolutely nothing to
declare.”

VIGILANCE NEEDED
As a Jewish community, we have
experienced trauma, pain, hatred,
death and displacement. We have
also endured indifference, hardened
hearts and the nagging presence of
anti-Semitism abroad and at home.
We are living in turbulent times.
Our own experience requires us to
be vigilant in protecting those who
are oppressed, inside and outside
of the Jewish community. For we,
too, once came to these shores with
nothing to declare. •

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February 2 • 2017

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