And That Was The Last Time I Saw My Family

An engaging first-person account of life in Warsaw before WWII, a painful farewell to family, a narrow escape from Europe on the eve of the Holocaust, and a journey via Cuba to a new life in America.

A story of courage and survival, this evocative memoir begins with a picture of life in my mother's large Jewish family in Warsaw before WWII. In March 1938, she was introduced on a blind date to a handsome young bachelor from Vienna, just weeks before Nazi soldiers burst in and confiscated his apartment and business at gunpoint. The two fell in love immediately, and, against the backdrop of the imminent danger of war, were married in Warsaw a month later. In November 1938, at my father's urging, they made the painful and wrenching decision to flee from Europe, unable to convince their families to join them. The journey took them to Cuba for two years; separated for a year because of U.S. immigration quotas, my mother's efforts helped my father gain entry to the U.S., where they were reunited and gratefully began their new life in January 1942.