Mom and Pop

I want to tell you two stories. They are similar, eerily similar, and see if you can guess who the main characters of these stories turn out to be. Both stories begin in Austria.

Before Hitler, before the war, Austria was already becoming a difficult place to live if you were a Jew. Oh, it was beautiful alright, and life was peaceful, until the Ukranians came. "I don't know what these Poles have against us," Abraham Teichman wrote, in a letter recalling his hometown of Galicia, "It is not easy for me to record my recollections of dear Jews who are no longer among the living because of the deeds of animals in human form."

Abraham Teichman and his wife, and the rest of the people in his village, were confronted daily by the horrible treatment of Jews. Fearing their lives, they decided to escape. Abraham got into an altercation with the Ukranians and by the time he got the chance to look for his wife, she, and his son, just a few days old, were gone. She was hiding somewhere,like Abraham had told her to do, but he didn't know where. He just had to trust that she and the baby made it out, and he, with the help of some friends, eventually sailed to America. Moses, the baby, and his mother did make it, and went through Ellis Island in 1897. Moses was two years old by the time he and his mother reunited with his father.

Just five years earlier, in 1892, an Austrian named Fritz Austerlitz first arrived at Ellis Island. Fritz was born in Linz, Austria to Jewish parents who had converted to Catholicism. Fritz was a young man of 24 when he came through Ellis Island. Later, Fritz and his wife changed the last name of their children, Adele and Frederich, to a name that sounded less "Jewish." Also, Fritz's hometown became the hometown of someone else, Adolf Hitler, yet another reason to distance themselves from their old life.

Ellis Island was a scary place for moms and dads, and their children. There were lines, lots and lots of lines, and each line meant you were a little closer to freedom. Families were seperated often, and you can just imagine Moses' mother watching her child being inspected. What if she made it through and he didn't? Those who had some affliction were marked by chalk, and either detained or sent back to their country of origin. You can just imagine young Fritz going through the lines...maybe he had a cold or the sniffles (Who wouldn't after weeks at sea, sailing through storms, cooped up with hundreds of other hopefuls in close quarters?). Any hint of sickness could get you "stuck" on Ellis Island, feeling like you're in prison, wondering if you'll ever make it onto the boat that will ferry you into NY. Most of us can only imagine.

These did make it, though, and we are so lucky they did. Moses, changing his name to sound more American, went on to become Arthur Murray, and Fritz's children became Adele and Frederich, or Fred as we know him, Astaire. Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire: We think of them as gifted American dancers and entertainers, and they are. But they could have easily never made it to America. They, or their parents, could have easily been turned away.

It's easy, as we are generations removed from Ellis Island, to forget. With all the battles going on now concerning immigration, it's easy to forget that we too, came from villages in the Ukraine, or Russia, or Japan or India or Spain or Italy. If you go to ellisisland.org, and type in your family surname, you'll be amazed at the results. Who do you know who braved storms at sea, or gunfire, or burning villages, or cold Russian winters with little food, to get here? Who in your family slept in church basements, hiding from gunfire, scared to make even the slightest sound, so that in the morning, they could run for the border? How many of us are here because of the sacrifice of our family that went before? I think we all need to remember that.