French Immigrant Lara Bisset

"I saw the Statue of Liberty.  It was so impressive, so majestic, so meaningful.  Freedom!  Opportunity!  And most of all, it linked to us, America and France, because we knew that it was given to America by France." (Lara Bisset)

Jews flee the Cossacks circa 1905 courtesy 

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/odessa/LIF_violence.asp.

In 1990, Lara Bisset visited the newly renovated Ellis Island for the first time since she immigrated to America in 1920.  What struck her was the Odessa, Ukraine Exhibit which explained the murder of hundreds of Jews at the hands of Russian Cossacks in 1905.  Lara's parents, also Odessa Jews, had escaped over the German border with their six month old son.  Trudging through the deep snow, her mother was "frozen up to the waist".  But she refused to go on without her baby, her legs "like two purple sticks".  

The Bisset's wandered around first Germany, then Luxembourg and finally Belgium, but didn't like any of the countries.  However, once they entered France, they knew they were home.  It was there that Lara was born in 1909.  While the Bisset's were poor, they managed to survive thanks to the help of their uncle who owned a dry goods store.  They would buy up dry goods to sell at foires (country fairs) which would help to put food on the table.  

It was a happy time for Lara.  The Bisset's new hometown did not have a synogogue but it did have a Roman Catholic church.  "You have to be exposed to religion," said Mrs. Bisset, who sent them to the Roman Catholic church only a block away.  She remembers picnics in the park where the family would munch on saucisses and peasant bread.  Entertainment came in the form of an accordion.  

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/319403798544419513/

After Mr Bisset served in the French Legion during the First World War, Mrs. Bisset begged him to go to America where her three siblings lived.  After much resistance, Mr. Bisset gave in and the family immigrated in 1920.  As the Touraine entered New York Harbor, Lara recalled:  "I saw the Statue of Liberty.  It was so impressive, so majestic, so meaningful.  Freedom!  Opportunity!  And most of all, it linked to us, America and France, because we knew that it was given to America by France." 

Statue of Liberty on display at Paris World's Fair circa 1878 courtesy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty#/media/File:Head_of_the_Statue_of_Liberty_on_display_in_a_park_in_Paris.jpg.

While the boat ride was exciting, the immigration process was less pleasant.  Adults and children were immediately segregated, a scary experience for Lara.  The sights and sounds were an assault to the senses.  Lara recalls:  "I remember hordes of people.  There were quite a few children and mothers, walking up those wide steps into the main building.  I remember the darkness, the wooden benches, the poorly lit hall, the babies screaming the children crying, adults crying.  It was awful."

With the tedious paperwork behind them, the Bissett family collected their luggage and took the ferry to the mainland where Lara's uncle picked them up in a Model T at Battery Park.  Language was an immediate barrier as the Bissett's spoke French and their brother spoke English.  Yiddish was their only common language.  

Lara would forge a new identity in New Jersey, retiring to Florida in the 1980's.  

Ukrainian Immigrant Esther Rosenbaum

"We both cried -- cried like never before to see each other, and that he was released.  It was a joy..."(Esther Rosenbaum)

Jewish wedding photo in Poland courtesy http://www.bh.org.il/jewish-community-zelechow-poland/.

Esther Rosenbaum, one of eight children, was born and raised in a small railroad town in the Ukraine. One of Esther's earliest memories is of a pogrom in her village.  Her brother, Yasha, was getting married when a train of bandits raided the town.  Esther's mom had the presence of mind to tell the bride to change out of her wedding dress.  She hid her in the basement.  The bandits, demanding to know the whereabouts of the bride, threw eggs at Esther's mother.  They turned their wrath on three musicians present at the wedding whom they hanged.  

Esther's mother put the rest of the family members in a wagon and covered them with straw.  They escaped the village and travelled 200 kilometres to Esther's grandparents house.  About a week later, the grandparents town was also raided by a pogrom.  Esther remembers her aunt being raped by Polish bandits.  

The family got back into the wagon and headed for the Russian border.  "We had to pay someone, what you would call a contraband to take us across the border.  We crossed and we all landed on the Romanian side  I remember walking up to our knees in mud.  I remember my father carry my brother, he was five, six years old...on his back."

Esther and her family lived in Romania for two years until they secured American visas.  Esther's mother was forced to stay behind to nurse her sister Tanya who had tuberculosis.  In 1923, they sailed across the Atlantic on the Byron.  Staying in the hold of the ship, Esther recalls everyone being sick.  They ate nothing but sardines for three weeks.  

Esther's aunt and uncle met them at Ellis Island.  The family settle din an apartment in the Bronx.  Esther's father followed her uncle into the banana business.  Esther and her siblings enrolled in school.  Being one of the older girls, it fell to Esther to cook and clean for her six siblings.  When Esther was 18, her father remarried.  "I was delighted.  I liked her.  She took a burden off my hands."

"The day I met my husband, I was taking a walk [with] a friend of mine.  It was the Fourth of July, and the two of us took a walk to Katonah Park, and there was my husband sitting there on the grass in the park..." Esther considered him to be handsome and ambitious.  It was the start of a marriage that would last 36 years.

Esther returned to Russia in 1958 to visit her brother Yasha, the one whose wedding had been interrupted by the pogrom.  However, when she arrived she was disappointed to hear that she couldn't see him:  he was in jail.  Yasha, who had fallen on hard times in his secondhand merchant business, was accepting help from his workers.  Someone squealed on him and he was arrested.

Finally, eight years later, released from prison, Yasha was reunited with "his little sister".  Esther pointed out however that she was no longer his little sister, she was a grandma.  Yasha maintained however that she would always be his little sister.  Esther recalled:  "We both cried -- cried like never before to see each other, and that he was released.  It was a joy..."

Banana docks circa 1906 courtesy https://www.pinterest.com/pin/248120260693484161/.

Note:  All of my September posts are taken from Ellis Island Interviews:  In Their Own Words by Peter Morton Coan.

Should Germany Get Kaliningrad Back?

"Kaliningrad, which...was home to philosopher Immanuel Kant, still exudes Germanic history, despite having served as a closed military area in Soviet times." 

(Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber, Moscow Times)

Two years ago the question was posed in the Moscow Times:  "If Russia gets the Crimea, should Germany get Kaliningrad?"  The latter, originally Koenigsberg, was the capital of East Prussia for about 700 years until 1945 when the Potsdam Agreement carved up Germany, ceding the area to Russia.  The former was part of the Soviet Union until Khrushchev annexed it to the Ukraine in 1954.  While only about 8 % of Kaliningrad's population remains German (originally it was close to 100%), a significant percentage of the Crimea remains Russian.  Judging by the numbers, then, Russia has more of a claim to the Crimea than Germany does to Kaliningrad.

This map explains why Russia invaded the Crimea in 2014 courtesy http://www.businessinsider.com/this-map-explains-why-russia-is-invading-crimea-2014-3.

However, as the writer of the Moscow Times article points out:  "Kaliningrad, which...was home to philospher Immanuel Kant, still exudes Germanic history, despite having served as a closed military area in Soviet times" (http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/if-russia-gets-crimea-should-germany-get-kaliningrad/496558.html).  Professor David Blatt weighs in on the subject by remarking that, given Germany's  history of aggression in the two World Wars, "I do not think Germany would ever propose such an idea..."  However, stranger things have happened in politics:  it cannot be ruled out.

The former Koenigsberg was the capital of East Prussia, Germany; now it is Kaliningrad, Russia courtesy https://emergingequity.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/kaliningrad-map.jpg.  

Like Germany, my husband's Oma, who lived to the ripe old age of 96, never tried to make a claim on her homeland.  She could have easily fixated on the fact that she owned a prosperous farm in East Prussia that was violently taken from her, that she was entitled to get it back.  She deserved to live there, not the Russian family that now called it home.

East Prussian farmers in field courtesy https://justice4germans.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/east-prussia-farmers-in-field.jpg.

However, that was not Oma.  I asked her how she survived such tragedy.  Her response?  I worked hard and I never showed fear.  And, I might add, she never felt sorry for herself.  She moved on.  She built a successful life in Ruhla, East Germany.  She crossed over a little barrier called the Berlin Wall (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2011/08/escaping-east-germany.html). And then she immigrated to Canada, where she built a life for her and her two children in Hamilton, Ontario (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2011/06/bon-voyage.html).  Every time my sister in law gets discouraged about the hardships in life, she reminds herself that she has Oma's blood coarsing through her veins:  she can overcome anything!

Boat on the Pregel River in Koenigsberg circa 1912, the year after Oma's birth, courtesy https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberg_(Preu%C3%9Fen).