HIAS

This story is re-told by Ellen Kaushansky, a 16 year old high school student, and is a portrayel of my step-father’s immigration to the United States from Kiev, Ukraine in 1979. “June 5, 1979. The date remains vivid in my mind as the day when my new life in America began. I was fourteen years old and had experienced more than anyone could have imagined at such a youg age. My mother Genya, my older brother Sasha, and I went to Moscow to apply for permission to leave for the United States. We waited four long months for approval and were thrilled when we discovered that we were on our way to start over in a far away land. We hurriedly left our apartment in the center of the city taking with us only what we could fit into the massive custom bags we were allowed to take with. We were also able to stuff whatever belongings we could fit into a crate that would be sent to America. Before we left, my aunt gave me a small gold ring with a tiny ruby placed gently in the setting. It was very valuable to her, and I was honored to receive such a gift. March 8 was our last night in the Soviet Union, and we spent the night in a boarding house watching TV. I was so enthralled by the program that I accidentally bumped the ring and the ruby fell out of the gold band. We searched everywhere, but were unable to find the missing ruby. The next day when we were going through customs at the station, an officer saw that the ring on my finger was missing a jewel. Since we were required to declare all of our valuables prior to our departure, the officer was suspicious that we failed to declare the jewel. They strip searched my mother and we ended up being very late for our train. The train was leaving the station, and my brother was throwing the suitcases to me as the train was moving. We barely made it out of the station; our journey to America was an adventure from the start. We arrived in Czecholsovakia and left the next day on a train to Vienna, Austria. We only stayed there for ten days, but I still remember the somehwat comical living arrangement we were placed in. The building functioned as a brothel on the first two floors, and immigrants rented the top two floors. It was a very ironic combination. After Vienna, my family took yet another train, but this time to Italy. For four months we lived in a little city by the ocean called La Dispoli. Most of our stay there was very relaxing. Since it was warm out, I went to the beach almost daily. I made some new friends, and when we collected enough money, our favorite activity was going out for ice cream. However, it wasn’t all just fun and games. My mom bought trinkets in Kiev for my brother and me to sell once we got to Italy, so on the weekends we would go to the flea market in Rome to try to make some extra money. Also, the city was divided between a facist area where we happened to live and a seperate communist area. A rally was scheduled by the fascists for the next day, when in the middle of the night I heard a massive explosion as the apartment shook. I later discovered that the communists had blown up the podium that was set up for the rally. My perfect world had literally been blown to pieces, but I still had hope for America and what lie ahead. We finally landed in New York after a long flight, and we stayed there for one day. Relatives met us in Manhattan and showed us around the city. I was in awe when I saw what seemed to be an endless car pass by; I had never seen a limousine in my life, and I was shocked! When we made our way up to Fifth Avenue, I saw another paradoxic moment when a woman in a Rolls Royse pulled up in front of a luxurious store, walked out of the car, stepped over a homeless man on the street, and walked right in to shop. This really was a foreign world where such sharp contrast in the way people lived exisited side by side. Our final stop was in Pittsburgh, and we arrived on the day that I will never forget, June 5. HIAS provided my family wonderful accomodations, and we received a fully furnished two-bedroom apartment. A volunteer showed us around, and lucky for us my uncle and his family lived very nearby. They had already been in America for six months, so they showed us all the places we would need in our daily lives such as grocery stores, pharmacies, etc. It was the start of summer, and I had nothing to do other than watch TV all day long. I had studied English in Kiev for three years, but it was difficult for me to construct full sentences. Surprisngly enough, what I thought was a pointless summer of TV actually turned out to be very helpful in my development of speaking English. At the beginning of the new school year, I was enrolled in a private Jewish school where most of my courses were focused on the English language, but I also learned a small amount of Hebrew as well. After about one and a half years, I started at a public high school called Allderdice. I found school to be a drag because I was put back three or four grades and placed in a remedial English class. All my classes were super easy, but English was where I struggled. Soon after, I started attending a trade school that was an hour away from my high school and it took two different buses to get there. None of that mattered to me because I found something I was passionate about: automechanics. I got a part-time job in a local autoshop to make extra money to help my family. I also started taking classes at a local college and received my Associates Degree in electronics. I decided that I no longer needed to attend high school classes that failed to challenge me, so instead I took the GED and got my diploma at age seventeen. I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to do ith my life, and at one point my friend and I almost bought a limo in New York. We thought that we could start a small business. However, life took me elsewhere when I saw an advertisement in the newspaper that really sparked my interest. I decided to attend the Machine Shop Technologies Institute in Pittsburgh where I majored in robotics engineering. I applied for a job in every big city, and eventually got called out for an interview in Chicago for a German company called Krupp. After a ten hour interview process, all I could do was wait. Three days later, I got a call saying that I got the job. I packed two suitcases and came to Chicago immediately. It was only eight days before I flew out to Germany for training, and I ended up spending four months traveling all over Europe for my job. That was the time when my new life in America really began, and I found my passion in robotics. I started traveling all over the world for different jobs. And eighteen years later, I still haven’t stopped exploring new places!”

1 Comments

Alla:

it reads like a true adventure story. There is everything in it: the missing jewels, strip searches, explosions and so on --- the only difference is that is it is not a fiction, but the life of a teenager in the middle of 20th century. Great story, very well written --- recomment to everyone.

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