"Crossing Flatbush Avenue"- Ann Cywiak

I interviewed my grandmother, Ann Cywiak. She moved to the United
States from Poland in 1952 with her husband her father and two children and she had her third child here in the United States. She now lives in Flatbush and in the winter months she lives in Florida where she enjoys the hot weather, the boardwalk and the pool.

I am from Poland. I have lived in the United States from 1952 until now. I went through World War II. When the war started I lived in the ghetto in Poland and then I was transported to a concentration camp in Germany and I was split up from my family. When the war was over I was liberated from the concentration camps and I went back to Poland to search for my family. The only family member I found was my father. A while after, we smuggled to Germany and we were in a DP camp there. From Germany we went on the Exodus which was suppose to go to Israel (Israel was Palestine at the time). However three English boats followed us and when we got to the port of Haifa the English did not let us get off the boat. They put us on their three boats and took us back to Germany. We resisted going off the boat in Germany. We stayed on the boat for about two months until we finally had to get off. Everyone went off and I stayed in Germany and got married and had my first son. After that we registered to come to America. I was seven months pregnant with my second child and my father was scared to let me fly to America so I had to wait until my second son was born to come. We came December 29, 1951. We were suppose to be sent to Cleveland but my father met a cousin of his here so his cousin told the joint committee which worked with HIAS (a Jewish organization that helped immigrants get settled in) to let us stay. HIAS helped us get jobs and gave us a few hundred dollars to buy furniture and some other things until we got on our feet. First we moved to Brownsville then we lived in Crown heights for six years and then we moved to Canarsie and now I live in Flatbush near my children.

I have my children and grandchildren and great grandchildren here. I am a house wife. I do housework, cook, knit and read. I came to the United States because of the persecution in the old countries. I expected to have a good life here and a free life and I found everything that I expected here. When I first came I did not know any English. I had not finished elementary school because of the war (I had one year left). I taught myself English by reading and by doing homework with my kids. I spoke Polish and Yiddish before. I am very comfortable using English and sometimes I use my native language as well. I felt more comfortable here then I did in Poland or Germany and my values went up here and I did it on my own. I felt no pressure doing it. I have no connection with my home country and neither do my children. At the time that I came here it was common for people to come here because they did not want to stay in Germany or Poland. I became a United States Citizen in 1957 because I wanted to become part of the country here like vote and participate in everything. I think of myself as a Jew and American. The term American means to me- the freedom of everything.