Post-war Europe was devastated economically and socially and for many Jews who survived the Holocaust, it was not a friendly place.  Surviving Jews struggled to get out of Europe and still faced many hurdles.  Palestine was difficult to enter because Britain controlled it and established blockades to keep immigrants out until Israel's independence in 1948. DP (displaced person) camps, some run by the American government, were established in Austria, Germany, Italy and other countries to house many of the millions of war refugees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displaced_persons_camp.

Many of these “displaced persons” were Jewish concentration camp survivors who wound up behind barbed wire and faced harsh conditions and continuing challenges finding countries that would accept them. President Eisenhower relieved General Patton of his command largely because of his indifference and the squalid conditions at the camps he commanded. The US allowed some immigration of these refugees but there was considerable Congressional opposition to those coming from central and Eastern Europe and to Jews.  This was due to the growing communist scare and ongoing anti-Semitism.

Six months after I was born, my parents had been in France long enough to qualify to become naturalized citizens. My mother, of course, was a forced immigrant to France because of her deportation by the Germans to Gurs, a French concentration camp.  My father certainly paid his dues to France by serving in the French Foreign Legion and  his incarceration as a POW. My grandmother was sent to her death in Auschwitz by the French Vichy government and SNCF (French National Railways).  Our parents' citizenship then qualified my brother and I to become French citizens. My birth (and my brother’s) in France did not automatically grant us citizenship as birthright citizenship does in the US.  Even with French citizenship, my parents still always considered themselves refugees and wanted to leave Europe.

My father had family in New York and wanted to immigrate to the US, which was enjoying a post war economic boom. Of course to many Europeans at the time, US streets were still “paved with gold.”  He initiated the process of obtaining a permanent entrance visa from the American Consulate in Paris. Unfortunately, he encountered one of America’s many discriminatory immigration policies. 

What follows are highlights of America’s immigration laws and is not a comprehensive accounting.

In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. It was the first law to target a specific ethnic group and was not repealed until 1943.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

In 1924 and again in 1952, the US passed immigration laws limiting immigration from Eastern Europe (and Southern Europe).  The 1952 law abolished racial restrictions but still permitted quotas for nationalities and regions, thus still allowing discriminatory immigration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952

The rationale for these laws in public and congressional debates is almost identical to the current debates. These immigrants are different; they are not assimilating; they will be a burden; and they are a threat to our jobs.  I believe that these laws were fundamentally racially based, as the underlying concern was the threat to White America. It’s ironic that the definition of “White” has been constantly changing. Southern Europeans, including Italians, Greeks and Spaniards were at one time not considered white enough and their immigration to the US was restricted.

Countries, including Romania where my father was born, that had been terribly oppressed and conquered by both the Germans and Russians, had limits on their citizens entering the US.   The Russians and Germans each murdered millions of civilians in Eastern Europe from the 1930's - 1940's.  

My father was repeatedly rejected for family visas to the US until a friend of his suggested that he re-apply under my mother’s German birthplace.  American immigration policies post-WW 2  were much more open to German immigrants, including Nazis, than to Eastern European immigrants. Even though she was never a German citizen, our family was able to obtain visas to come to the US under the German quota.  (American immigration policies were based on country of birth-not citizenship)

We arrived in New York by boat on the SS Flandre after a stormy voyage in December of 1953. 

SS Flandre

Ellis Island was no longer operational and we landed somewhere on Manhattan’s west side. We must have passed the Statue of Liberty like countless refugees and immigrants before us, but I have no memory of that.

Our first home was provided by HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) at their dormitory on Lafayette St. near Cooper Square in Manhattan. Today that dormitory is the Joseph Papp Public Theatre. HIAS no longer focuses on Jewish immigration and its mission is now to rescue "people whose lives are in danger for being who they are."
http://www.hias.org/

Our first home in US - HIAS - now Joseph Papp Public Theatre

Our family spent a few weeks at the HIAS dormitory until we moved to our first apartment on Throop Ave in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. After about 6 months we moved to Williams Ave in the East New York section of Brooklyn and I attended PS 174 from Kindergarten through 5^th grade.  

Polak Family - Brooklyn, NY - pre-chic era - circa 1956

My family arrived in the US with about $300.  Except for the brief support from HIAS, there were no other government services available to us as immigrants. We were on our own. My father worked in New Jersey for Manischewitz making matzos, and my mother worked in a Brooklyn factory sewing labels into sweaters on a piece work basis. Her working conditions improved significantly when she joined the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) and was able to get benefits including an hourly wage and health insurance. 

East New York was a diverse working class neighborhood.  My elementary school was excellent. In NYC, public schools were funded through broad five borough taxation. There was a powerfully strong and effective tradition of immigrant and working class children quickly moving up the economic and educational ladder due to public financial commitment to education. Far Rockaway HS, the local public school I attended, has 3 nobel laureates among its alumni. The support for public education that my brother and I benefitted from extended to free college for both us in the City University of New York. My parents had not even gone to high school and as first generation Americans we both graduated from college (and graduate schools).

I learned English very quickly but many of the children I played with taunted me because I was an immigrant.  These children were from families likely one or two generations away from being immigrants themselves.

In 1960, my family had been in the US long enough to qualify and we became naturalized American citizens. I went from being stateless at birth to having dual citizenship. This is allowed under US law. My parents, like current applicants for American citizenship, had to pass a civics test.  It’s likely that many native-born Americans would not be able to pass this test.

https://my.uscis.gov/en/prep/test/civics/view

In 2004, with France part of the European Union, my French citizenship allowed me to reside and work in EU member states. To date, I have not taken advantage of that. 

Dual citizenship is psychically critical for me. I can’t forget how many Jews struggled to get out of Europe during WW 2 but were turned away from all countries, including the US.  Although it’s not entirely rational, if I ever needed to flee I want as many doors open to me as possible. 

The US did not respond adequately to the humanitarian crisis of European Jews and only allowed 132,000 Jews into the US between 1933 and 1945. The lack of a suitable empathic response to the Jewish refugee crisis was the result of a nasty strain of anti-Semitism that has continued to exist in the US. Even European children at ultimate peril from Germany’s genocide of Jews were not immune to American anti-Semitism.  When a special exception was proposed to allow them into the US, the wife of the US Commissioner of Immigration remarked at a cocktail party: “20,000 children would all soon grow up to be 20,000 ugly adults.” (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History).

One of the most shameful acts of FDR’s administration was the turning away of the ship St. Louis with 908 Jewish refugees fleeing Germany in 1939. They were originally going to be allowed into Cuba, but when Cuba denied them entrance as they moored in Havana Harbor, they pleaded with the US government to be allowed into America. They were denied refuge and the boat turned around and went back to Europe where approximately one quarter of those aboard was murdered in Nazi death camps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

Marcel Polak - Paris, France - 1953

I have long been concerned about the plight of immigrants and refugees in the United States and in Europe.  Immigration to the US and Europe was a significant factor in the Brexit vote and our presidential election.

This blog will focus on my family history, especially the challenges my family faced with immigration and citizenship. I think that an ongoing dialogue about current illegal immigrants, new immigrants and refugees is critical. I hope my family history contributes to informing us.

I was born stateless in Paris, France in 1949.  That means that I was not a citizen of any country and therefore lacked any of the important rights of citizenship which are are specific to each country. This was the result of tumultuous 19^th-20^th century European history, long standing discriminatory policies regarding immigrants in Europe and the US, and my own unique family history.

In order to understand why I was born stateless, I have to describe my parents’ family history.  I will provide an overview now, and offer additional details in other future posts.

My father, Bernard (born Burech Pollack), was born in Ruscova, Romania in 1914, in what was then the Austria-Hungarian Empire.  After changing country “affiliation” a few times in the 20^th century, Ruscova is now in a part of northern Romania known as Transylvania (sorry, no known vampires in my family history) and is very close to the present day Ukraine border. His father, Berle Mordechai Pollack, was forcefully drafted into the Austrian-Hungarian army during WW 1 and never came home.

                                                        

Berle Mordechai Pollack - Austrian Hungarian Army - 1910's

The family has no idea how or where he died.  Austria-Hungary lost WW 1 and the empire disintegrated.  After the war, the Austria-Hungarian Empire no longer existed, and my father likely no longer had any citizenship.

In 1929, my father facing a poor economic future (and other challenges) left Romania and came to Paris, France where he had an aunt and uncle.  His name was changed from Burech Pollack to Bernard Polak. 

Bernard Polak - Paris - 1930's

Paris at that time was a refuge for many immigrants from all over Europe, but especially Eastern Europe. He apparently came on some kind of temporary visa. Like so many others in Europe and the US with poor choices in their home countries, he illegally overstayed his visa. At some point in the 1930’s, he was caught by the French authorities and given a choice to be deported back to Romania or to serve in the French Foreign Legion. He chose the latter. He joined before WW 11 and served in North Africa.

CPL Bernard Polak (in white) - French Foreign Legion, Morocco, late 1930's-early 1940's

Bernard Polak - French Foreign Legion - Morocco - (3rd from right) late 1930's- early 1940's

When the Germans invaded France in June 1940, it didn’t take long for the French army and (Vichy) government to surrender.  General DeGaulle, representing the opposition government, went into exile in London and directed Resistance and anti-German opposition. The French Foreign Legion split with one group under Vichy control and the other directed by DeGaulle. My father’s Foreign Legion Battalion fought the Germans in North Africa and he was captured. He was sent to a POW camp in southern Italy, where he escaped and made his way to the allied lines in northern Italy. As the war was not over, he could not return to occupied Paris and he spent the duration of the war in Morocco.  When the war ended he went back to Paris.

My father’s mother, Batia Pollack, his grandparents, and many other close relatives remained in Ruscova, now under Hungarian rule.  In 1944, along with other Hungarian Jews and Elie Wiesel, whose hometown of Sieghet was only about 20 miles away, all my family members in Ruscova were deported to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  

                                                               

Batia Adler Pollack - Ruscova, Romania, born Unter Apsa, Ukraine

My mother, Henni Polak (born Henriette Elter), was born in Mannheim, Germany in 1920 to Polish immigrants (I will later tell their story in more detail. They are the reason for my recent trip to Germany). Germany, like many countries at the time, did not recognize birthright citizenship as does America. Therefore she was never a German citizen but rather a Polish citizen, like her parents.  At some point in the 1930’s the Polish government announced that they were revoking the citizenship of those Poles, including my mother, who had not been in Poland in many years. This rendered her stateless. She experienced the rise of Nazism and Kristallnacht in 1938 (her specific experience later).  Two of her brothers and two sisters were able to leave Germany for Palestine before the war broke out. One other brother, Gustav Elter, had been imprisoned and was murdered at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in 1942. Her father, Salomon Leopold (Solomon was his Jewish name) Elter had left Germany for unknown reasons to Italy before 1938.

                                                                      

Henriette Elter, Mannheim, Germany, 1937-8

                                                    

Leie Krieger Elter, Mannheim, Germany, 1937-8, born in Oswiecim, Poland 

NO KNOWN PHOTOS EXIST OF MY GRANDFATHER – SALOMON LEOPOLD ELTER AND MY UNCLE – GUSTAV ELTER.

On October 22-23, 1940, all the remaining Jews in Mannheim and surrounding areas in the state of Baden, including my mother and grandmother, Leie Elter, were deported en masse to Gurs Concentration Camp in the French Pyrenees. They were given about 24 hours to pack one suitcase.

       

Gurs Concentration Camp, Pyrenees, France. 6500 German Jews deported from Baden (Mannheim state) - originally built for Spanish Republican refugees fleeing Franco's Fascist Spain

Gurs Concentration Camp - Barracks Facsimile 

Gurs Concentration Camp - Artist Depiction - Horrible conditions - US Holocaust Museum

There were numerous concentration camps in France run by the Vichy government. These camps were not extermination camps, although many died from illness and malnutrition.  My mother was able to escape with her partner Artur Schnierer, and my grandmother Leie remained in Gurs. On September 4, 1942 my grandmother and all the remaining Jews in Gurs were deported to Auschwitz, via the notorious Drancy transit camp, outside of Paris.  The French national railroad system, SNCF, was paid to transport her. My grandmother Leie was murdered in Auschwitz. It was a particularly ironic moment for her. The millions of Jews who arrived in Auschwitz had no idea where they were. She did know, as she was born in the nearby Polish town of Oswiecim in 1882.

After my mother escaped from a second camp, Les Milles, my brother Raymond, was born in 1943 in Limoges.  She lived the balance of the war in Occupied France with fake identity papers provided by her partner, Arthur "Turl" Schnierer, and the French Resistance. My brother Raymond was hidden in a series of sympathetic children’s homes and other "safe places". My mother had many close calls with French Police checking her false papers and choosing to let her go. This was mostly the result of luck of being checked by those police who were sympathetic to the plight of Jews in France.

My brother’s father, Arthur "Turl" Schnierer, was a hero in the French Resistance who was eventually captured and sent to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald, which he both survived. He died in his hometown of Vienna, Austria of tuberculosis, which he had contracted in the concentration camps.

When the war ended my mother went to Paris where she met my father and they married. Paris was not simply the romantic destination of today. I was born in 1949 in an old 18^th century slum tenement, 53 Rue de Montreuil in the 11^th arrondisement with no running water in the apartment, a primitive hole in the floor toilet, and huge Parisian rats running around. My father had to club them to death. Because my mother and father were stateless, and France did not recognize birthright citizenship I too was stateless. Six months after I was born, my parents were finally able to get French citizenship and I too became a naturalized French citizen along with my brother.

                                    

Raymond and Marcel Polak, 1953-4                  

I was fortunate to have been born in Paris after the war ended.   I missed by seven years, the Vel D’Hiv roundup of July 1942 when the French police, directed by the Nazis, raided and arrested around 13,000 Jews, including 4,000 children. The French police even violently physically separated infants from their parents.  After being held in different places in horrible conditions they were all shipped in cattle cars to Auschwitz for their mass murder. My brother, born in 1943, could have been one of these children. The last Paris neighborhood I lived in before moving to the US was in the 3^rd arrondisement – 191 Rue du Temple - and is known as the Marais. Today it’s a chic boutique neighborhood with many traditional Jewish restaurants and a few synagogues remaining. Today tourists would not believe the horror that took place in the 1940’s as the French Police rounded up Jewish children from local schools and homes.

191 Rue du Temple- on left- 3rd arrondisement, Marais, last address in Paris

Park across from 191 Rue du Temple - where I played as a child

                             

Memorial in Park to neighborhood Jewish children deported and murdered from 1942-4
 Note ages: Children as young as 1 year old

To be continued.........