Reserve your Visit
Online Store
Support Us
Refugees Sleeping Aboard an American Airplane, on a Flight Leaving Germany
Yad Vashem Archives, 6228/53
From the Testimony of Dorothy Finger:
“During the war years I lost what other kids had. I lost my family, home, friends, happy school years. I had to forget that I was growing up and needed an education. I had to go to work and forget about life. [..] I lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany and dreamt about my freedom in the United States or Israel. Once I decided to do something about my future, I wrote a letter to an uncle of mine who lived in Wilmington and asked him for help. He did. He sent me an affidavit. His son, who was a captain in the Air Force in the United States Army, was in Germany. He found me and took me with him and I stayed with him and his wife for one year. He helped me to come to the United States. I waited a long time for the day I can land in a free country, where there is no difference of what race or religion you are, where everybody is free and happy. All kids are going to school and enjoying life. I waited a long time and got what I waited for so long. I received my passport [..]”
Yad Vashem Archive (0.69/203)
In the photograph, we see a Jewish family aboard an airplane, immigrating to the United States. They are sitting on the airplane deck, father and child are sleeping. The child is heavily wrapped, clutched firmly by the father. The family members are gathered together, on their way to a new country. What difficulties do you think an immigrant family of Holocaust survivors, might encounter in a foreign country?