One family’s WWII journey from Austria to India to the U.S.

Stephen: I was born in Vienna, Austria. We left there in 1938 on September 8th, some months after the Germans marched into Austria. We were able to get to Bikaner in what was then British India. 

There was no English language school in Bikaner, so I was sent to boarding school in Simla, as was my brother. But he was in the main school. I was in the preparatory school. As far as I know, the main school still exists. It was there in 2010 when I was there with my son and daughter-in-law.

Interviewer: Oh, you visited? That's great.

Stephen: Yes, my son was very anxious to see India. He said he'd been hearing about it all his life. He wanted to see it for himself.

And so, with my daughter-in-law, we retraced much of where I had been as a young child. When we came to India, we landed in Delhi. We spent three days there before going to Agra, and from there on to Bikaner.

We had come there through the auspices of Ganga Singh, Maharaja of Bikaner, who had had two new hospitals built. He instructed his chief medical officer, essentially the secretary of health, to staff the hospitals. Now, that individual, Dr. Richard Weingarten, had left Germany in 1933 or 1934, and set up a practice in what was then called Bombay. But he was then hired by the Maharaja to take over the health department in Bikaner. He had a chance to get a few people out of Austria. And he hired my father to be the first surgeon at the Prince Bijay Singhji Memorial General Hospital for men.

The hospital for women was right next door. And those still were standing in 2010 when we visited Bikaner.

As I mentioned before, we grew up there. It was two years until the British interned us. I was away at school at the time when the war broke out in September 1939. The British who had accepted the annexation of Austria by Germany considered us to be Germans when we were there. And so when the war broke out, they considered us to be enemy aliens.

Initially, we were put under restrictions for travel. The British said, “Okay, as long as you stay within Bikaner.”

 But then after the fall of Dunkirk in 1940, they decided that wasn't enough, and they decided to intern my parents. My brother and I were still in school. But at the end of the school year in mid-December 1940, we joined them in the internment camp, which was above the village of Purandhar. There was an old British military camp there which became the internment camp. It was about an hour's bus trip from Puna. 

We were there until we were able to leave for the United States, and the British said, “Okay, as long as you're leaving the country, go ahead.”

 Then, we had a six-week journey on the US ship to come to the United States.

Interviewer: How was that?

Stephen: Well, we went around South Africa because we couldn't go through the Mediterranean with the war raging there. We left April 27th, arrived June 3rd in New York, stopping at Cape Town and Port of Spain. But we were not allowed to leave the ship at either one of those ports because those were British ports. And we were on a German passport. 

When we were leaving India, the total amount of foreign exchange my parents could get was 500 US dollars out of which the passage for everyone except my father had to be paid—that one was paid for by the Maharaja or by the government of Bikaner.

And it had to cover our passage and shipping our goods. So we didn't have much on arrival in the United States. My aunt, who was already in New York by that time, had found a job for my mother to start in the garment industry. So my mother started working in New York for $17 per week, which was just barely above the minimum wage of the time, which was at $0.40 per hour.

Interviewer: What did she work at?

Stephen: She was in the garment industry, sewing whatever needed sewing. I think at some point she was doing shirts, and at that time later she was sewing dolls. And until that time she had used only a foot-powered home sewing machine.

When she presented herself for that first job, the forelady of course wanted to see what she could do. Now, that lady was herself a German immigrant. And she saw that my mother was inexperienced with a power machine. But she said in German, “For what my people have done to you, I've got to make amends.”

And for my father, a position was found by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid society in Springfield, Massachusetts. And so he had been first surgeon at the State Hospital in Bikaner, and now he was an intern at a community hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Interviewer: Did he do a specific type of surgery or general surgery?

Stephen: General surgery. But he had to be there as an intern until he could pass his exams to get the license. It took him about a year and a half to get to the point where he could get the license. So in 1943, my mother, my brother, and I joined him in Springfield.