To immigrate to the the US we went through legitimate sources with my uncle and we came under the quota system. The Russian quota was not used very much because the Soviets were not letting people out. Everything was legalized in Washington. My uncle had friends in Washington and they were helpful, but we came the old fashioned way – the way immigrants were allowed in back then. At that time they didn’t give you any special status if you were political refugees or anything else. 

 

So we used all the correct channels. The only thing that was not exactly correct was my false birth certificate, but I was not of age yet anyway so it didn’t really matter. I was coming with my parents. But to get out from under the Soviets we had to hide the fact that we were originally Soviet citizens. We said we didn’t have a citizenship of any kind. 

 

And they were disorganized enough so that you could get away with it?

 

Yeah. My parents had false papers and I had the papers stating I was born in Poland. I don’t know where they got them. They did not tell me much about these things except for the things I was supposed to say, because the fewer things that people knew, the better. And when they came here they didn’t even want to think about it. 

Also it was hard to get a passage. We were with the first civil passengers on Queen Mary after the war. It carried troops during the war.

 

So you had the tickets for the voyage before you left Prague?

 

You had to have the tickets for the voyage before you left Prague and you didn’t leave on your own. There was a whole bunch of immigrants that traveled as a group. And my father was able to arrange a trip to Paris ahead of the group because he wanted to spend a few days in Paris. With the group you stop one day in Paris and then you cross the channel and you stop one day in London – or two days in London – something like that. And then you went to Southhampton and sailed from Southhampton.