Martha Mayer Emerson

Harper: Good morning. Can we please begin by you telling me your name, your maiden name, you date and place of birth. 
EMERSON: Martha Emerson nee Mayer. Born somewhere in the Rhineland, but I grew up in Frankfort, Germany.  

Harper: And what year were you born?
EMERSON: 1901. December 30th 1901.

Harper: Growing up, who made up your household?
EMERSON: Father and mother and myself. I grew up as an only child. 

Harper: Can you tell me a little bit about your parents? Where they were from maybe?
EMERSON: My father was a representative for a company in Frankfort and traveled a lot. And what else?

Harper: What sort of company? Where he was from, his name?
EMERSON: He was born in Frankfort, yes. And his name was Otto Mayer. 

Harper: And how about your mother?
EMERSON: My mother? My mother’s maiden name was Solomon. 

Harper: And did she work?
EMERSON: No.

Harper: Just a housewife?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: And where was she from?
EMERSON: She was from Germany somewhere. 

Harper: Did you get a chance to meet your grandparents?
EMERSON: Yes. For my father’s parents, they lived in Frankfort. And the maternal grandparents lived in a small town in the Rhineland. 

Harper: Do you have any idea how long your family had been in Germany?
EMERSON: Oh, generations. I don’t know. I know, see what was it, great-grandfather, they lived in a small town somewhere in the Rhineland too. 

Harper: Did you grow up with your grandparents? How often did you see them?
EMERSON: Several times a year; I spent all my school vacations with them. We did not have as long a vacation as they have here. We had Easter two weeks, and Whitsuntide [Pentecost] a week, and four and a half weeks summer in July. And two weeks in early October, and Christmas two weeks too. [knock on door – someone comes in, short interruption]

Harper: So continue.
EMERSON: Where are we?

Harper: You were telling me that you would spend some vacations with your grandparents.
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: Did they live in a different town than you?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: How would you go there?
EMERSON: By train. 

Harper: Just you, or your parents too?
EMERSON: No, I went by myself. I was raised quite self-reliant. I know I was eight years old when I went by myself and I had to change trains and was no problem. There was no danger of somebody hurting you. 

Harper: Were these your maternal grandparents?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: What about your father’s parents?
EMERSON: They lived in Frankfort. 

Harper: So you saw them as well?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: And what did your father’s father do for a living?
EMERSON: I don’t know.

Harper: Do you know what your mother’s father did for a living?
EMERSON: I know they had a restaurant once but that’s all I know.

Harper: And you said your dad was a salesman. What sort of salesman?
EMERSON: He traveled for a company in Frankfort. 

Harper: He traveled all over the country?
EMERSON: Quite a bit. Not the whole country but a lot. He also traveled to Luxembourg and I think at that time Strasburg belonged to Germany so he traveled there too. He had quite an extended district. 

Harper: Were you middle class? Did you have a comfortable living?
EMERSON: I suppose, yes. I had a nice childhood. 

Harper: Can you tell me a little bit about the neighborhood you grew up in? Did you grow up in an apartment, or a house?
EMERSON: Well, in Frankfort very few people had a house. Houses were, there was on each floor one apartment. And houses sometimes its three or four floors. 

Harper: And you lived in a flat?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: Can you remember the name of the street?
EMERSON: Oh it doesn’t matter. We moved once closer to the railroad station and then we moved back to another district and so it doesn’t matter if you know the names of the streets. 

Harper: Were those neighborhoods that you lived in Jewish neighborhoods?
EMERSON: No, mixed. 

Harper: How about your immediate neighbors. Were they Jewish or Gentile?
EMERSON: Gentile most of the time, yes. 

Harper: How were the relations between Jews and the Gentiles growing up?
EMERSON: Very nice. Good. In fact my very first girlfriend at the age of four was a Catholic girl from religious Catholic parents. And it was a lifelong friendship. 

Harper: Were your parents friends with Jews and non-Jews alike?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: Was your family religious?
EMERSON: My father came from a religious family but he did not observe anything. He never went to a service but he insisted that I learn to read Hebrew and actually in that first school where I went, it was a mixed school, we had Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, about one third each of these groups. And we had twice a week lessons in religion and religious history. The Protestants were in a separate room, and then the Catholics and the Jews. 

Harper: Do you remember your grandparents being religious?
EMERSON: Yes, they were religious. I wouldn’t say Orthodox, but religious. All holidays and Saturdays were observed absolutely. No business. 

Harper: Did they keep kosher?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: But your parents did not?
EMERSON: Oh, yes. My mother was quite a long time kosher. And after my grandfather’s death, my grandmother lived with us for 17 years and of course we had a kosher household then. 

Harper: Did you observe Shabbat growing up in your parents’ house?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: Do you remember your father going to the synagogue at all?
EMERSON: No, my father didn’t. Ever. 

Harper: Did you?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: Did you live near the synagogue?
EMERSON: No. There were several synagogues in Frankfort. 

Harper: While you were growing up, were you or your family involved in any sort of Jewish community activities, like a Jewish club?
EMERSON: No. Actually, I don’t know that there were Jewish clubs, no. 

Harper: How about just any activities? Like a sports club or things like that?
EMERSON: No, I don’t think my parents were members of any clubs, no. We did a lot of hiking, usually on weekends on Sundays. My father especially. One year my mother wasn’t well, so he took me and we went early Sunday mornings on hiking trips. And Frankfort has a nearby mountain range, not too high. There were a lot of paths where you could walk and hike. 

Harper: Were you involved in any sort of youth group? 
EMERSON: No. 

Harper: Was anyone in your family in the military?
EMERSON: Yes. Two of my uncles were in the First World War from beginning to the end. And before as young men they were in military service. And my father was drafted in 1915 during the First World War. Actually he had three brothers who all were in the military as soldiers. One brother was killed in the First World War. Also my father. He was sent to the Russian front and was killed after six weeks. He died then. 

Harper: I want to go back to that, about World War I. But first let me find out about your schooling. Can you tell me a little bit about the school you went to?
EMERSON: Yes. I went to a very good school. Mixed, as I mentioned before, mixed school. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. And we had good teachers, mostly men. And the ladies were not allowed to be married at that time. I understand now that they can marry. I was lucky; we had very good teachers. Very nice ones. No antisemites.

Harper: And that first school, at what age did you complete the courses, do you remember?
EMERSON: Well, I was 12 when I started high school. And schools at that time were 10 years, so I was four years in high school. 

Harper: How did World War I affect your daily life?
EMERSON: Well, I think in 1916 we started rationing. Clothing was rationed too. But as I said I spent most of my vacations with my grandparents who lived in a small town. My grandfather had business connections with farmers so they got eggs and butter and those things, which were rare. And when I went visiting with my grandparents I always took such extra food with me home to Frankfort. 

Harper: And if you could tell me again, please, about your father being drafted.
EMERSON: Yes. His three brothers all served in the military before the war. But he was not taken, and then he was drafted in 1915 and trained and sent to the Russian front and six weeks later he was killed. 

Harper: Was that difficult for your family? Obviously?
EMERSON: Yes, sure. My mother was a good businesswoman and she started a business and she was successful. Later on, when I was out of school, she started the wholesale business and I worked there. In school we also had learned bookkeeping and business administration. So I managed the inner part of the business and my mother used to travel, selling. 

Harper: What year did your mom start this business?
EMERSON: I would say in 1920.

Harper: At that time you were about 19 years old?
EMERSON: Going on 19, yes. 

Harper: You were finished with school?
EMERSON: Yes. Actually, I wanted to study medicine, I wanted to be a doctor but it didn’t work out. The last year in high school I took private lessons in Latin, which I would have needed. And so it didn’t work out. So I went into business, helped my mother.

Harper: Did you live still at home with your mother at that time?
EMERSON: Yes. It was the usual thing that grown up children lived with their parents until they got married or they left for a job in another city. Otherwise they lived with the parents. 

Harper: Can you tell me about your life then, helping your mother run the business and just what happened to you?
EMERSON: I don’t know. I had a good time most of the time [chuckles].

Harper: Did you get married?
EMERSON: I married in 1938 at the age of 36. I would have almost gotten married before but I am glad it didn’t work out, that I didn’t do it. And I got a very, very nice man. The best man I could have got. I was married for 46 years in a very happy marriage from beginning to the end. Are you married? No. I wish you, if you had a marriage like that, there wouldn’t be any divorce and no unhappy marriages. [Reich in background says I hope I will]. If you are lucky enough to find the right man. 

Harper: If you can tell me when you first heard of Hitler.
EMERSON: 1933, January 30th. I remember the evening when he made his first speech. And the first thing he did was to forbid that animals were slaughtered as if for kosher, for the Jewish way. That was number one. 

Harper: So you don’t remember hearing of him anytime before that. You don’t remember hearing about his Putsch?
EMERSON:  Oh yes, in Munich in 1923. And he was sent to a fortress for I don’t know how long. And that’s where he was when he wrote his book Mein Kampf. 

Harper: Was anyone concerned with him at that time in the ‘20s? 
EMERSON: No. Not in general. Maybe people were concerned. 

Harper: I am trying to understand here, during the ‘20s, I’m just trying to get a general overview of what your life was like. You still lived in Frankfort?
EMERSON: Yes. Life was ok, no troubles. 

Harper: And you were still in the business with your mother?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: And you still lived with your mother through the ‘20s?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: So if you can tell me then more about your first memories of Hitler, what happened then after he came to power?
EMERSON: Now wait a minute, there was something. Well, they went step by step in causing hardships for Jews. In 1936 there was the Olympiad in Berlin and a black American won a gold medal as a runner. And Hitler gave them reception, all these who had medals but he refused to shake hands with the black American who had the gold medal. 

Harper: Can you tell me about how your daily life changed as the years went on? Were there any laws passed that affected you directly?
EMERSON: Yes, during the time when Hitler came. Yes, gradually there were restrictions. Finally I think by the end of 1938 Jews were forbidden to have businesses. And I had taken a job in 1935. It was a Jewish owned company, a wholesale company, an office job. I stayed there until December 1938. I got married on October 6th, 1938 and you know on November 9th, 1938, the Nazis arrested the Jewish men and sent them to concentration camps. My husband [thinking]…yes he had a job before we got married working at a Jewish company, a leather goods manufacturer. The boss disappeared suddenly one day, went to another country. And my husband, then he got a job with a Gentile owned company, leather goods manufacturer and he was arrested on November 14th, 1938 and taken to Dachau for four weeks. 

But at that time he had been in the boy scouts and he had served in the First World War for two years – he was drafted at the age of 18 – and he knew how to keep his mouth shut. So he was not beaten. And I got him out after four weeks. There were two Jewish young ladies who were working in the Jewish organization in Frankfort and they came one day and asked me if my husband had been a soldier in the First World War or at the front fighting. And he was for two years at the French front. He had a certificate signed by the then president of Germany saying that he had been a front fighter in the First World War. I had the copy of the certificate and we also had applied at that time to immigrate to Kenya, east Africa. With this certificate, I had a letter from the British consulate in Frankfort. I sent copies of said to the secret police in Frankfort and after two weeks he came back out from Dachau. Meanwhile, I had everything prepared for us to leave and three weeks after his return from Dachau we left Frankfort. That was early January 1939. And we had planned to come to the United States but the American consulate in Stuttgart worked to slow we couldn’t get there. But we got through with the British consulate in Frankfort. And I must say that they English authorities were very helpful. At the consulate they usually had two hours, one in the morning and one the afternoon, for people and on those November days – wait, wait – yes, was in November still, they worked until 11 o’clock in the night to help people. 

So anyway, we left Frankfort on January 5th, 1939 on a German ship, passenger liner, to Mombasa, Kenya. Took 32 days and it was a very nice trip. The captain of the ship was not a Nazi. He was very nice and before we got to Kenya he made a very nice speech and wished all those who were looking to find a new home the very best. He was not a Nazi and not an antisemite. And we had a good time on the ship. Were 18 different nations. We met very nice people. And my husband and I, we had taken a refresher course in English, private lessons, for about two years before we left. We were lucky to come to an English speaking country. At the time Kenya was a British colony, see. 

Harper: Can I ask you some questions here?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: So you were married in 1938, right?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: Did you have a Jewish wedding?
EMERSON: In Germany you had to go to a registrar’s office – that was the legal marriage. And then you could go to a church or synagogue. We had planned… Yes my mother-in-law, we sent her to Johannesburg, South Africa because my husband’s sister and husband lived there. She left middle of October and she didn’t want to go, she was very emotional. She didn’t want to be there. Well the synagogues didn’t exist anymore. You know the synagogues were burned and destroyed on that night of November 9th in Germany. In Frankfort, except for one synagogue, they were all destroyed or burned. And that one, that was a reform synagogue, and actually not an old synagogue, they couldn’t burn that because they were right next door houses where Gentile families were living. But they burned the inside, see, benches and everything. So we had a religious ceremony in the house of a retired rabbi. He was the only one that was there. The other rabbis were either emigrated or one was in Dachau. And so we had a chuppa that was there in that rabbi’s house and we had witnesses, yes. So that was it. No big wedding. We had a dinner in a separate room of a restaurant, which was owned by a mixed couple. A Gentile man and a Jewish woman. We were only six people, that was all the wedding I had [chuckles]. But a happy marriage afterwards and that was important. Not all that fuss which is now with those marriages. I wouldn’t want it anyway. 

Harper: What was your husband’s name?
EMERSON: Peter Emerson. 

Harper: Can you tell me more about Kristallnacht? What happened? Did you witness things going on?
EMERSON: No, I did not. Next morning, I think that was a Thursday night, and Friday when I went to the office I heard about it. Didn’t know anything about it during the night, then I heard. And of course they also had smashed shop windows of Jewish stores and I saw some of them when I went to the office that morning.

Harper: Did you talk to any other Jewish people? What they thought about what was going on or were you scared or anything?
EMERSON: In a way, perhaps scared, but no. 

Harper: What did you think had happened? What did you think that was, all that destruction?
EMERSON: Well we knew it was done by the Nazis. They came and smashed the windows in the stores and went in and pulled merchandise out, I mean real destructive. 

Harper: Did you know anyone whose shop was destroyed?
EMERSON: Maybe, I don’t remember. 

Harper: And your husband was arrested how long after?
EMERSON: My husband was arrested on November 14th, so five days later. He came out on December 13th, 1938. And as I said we left on January 5th, 1939.

Harper: Can you tell me about his arrest?
EMERSON: No, I wasn’t there. I don’t know. He was arrested in that office where he worked at that time. 

Harper: How did you find out that he had been arrested?
EMERSON: I was called about 1:30 in that office where I worked and told that my husband had been arrested and that he was at the City Hall office in a suburb near Frankfort. If I would be there by three o’clock, but I don’t remember if I was told what I should bring or what, then they would let him go. So I ran and I took a taxi and off I went. I was there before three o’clock but they told me they had taken him already to Frankfort to police jail. So I turned ‘round and I went to the police jail but I didn’t get to see him. 

Later on I went back and I brought something to eat for him and pajama but I don’t know whether he ever got it. And then three days later – I didn’t see him then – three days later they took him to Dachau. They didn’t beat him at that time, and anyway he kept his mouth shut at the right time. They let them stand out in the cold, was cold there. And let them march a lot. And so, that’s it. 

Harper: Was he able to write letters to you?
EMERSON: Yes, he wrote to me. [laughing] And I had an uncle in Amsterdam at the time, so he sent me a postcard and he was asking how aunt Elizabeth is doing. She was my uncle’s wife. I knew what he meant. He knew that we had that going with the British consulate and he wanted to know how things were. So I wrote back that aunt Elizabeth is doing much better and she might soon get out of bed. See, he knew what it meant. He got that card. 

Harper: Had you and your husband decided to leave Germany before he was arrested?
EMERSON: Yes. Actually we had planned to go to South Africa in 1936 and take my mother-in-law with us. I wasn’t married then yet. And [laughing] they invited me one evening to come and talk that over. And she said to me she and her son would be going to South Africa and that I would come with them was out of the question. She was old fashioned. When he will be able to support a family he can let you come. That was old fashioned you know – when a man got married he was able to support a family. [Knock on door, interrupted by housekeeper]. 

Yes, that was 1936. But then South Africa closed its doors. Only for parents who had children in South Africa and the parents would be 60 or over. So my future mother-in-law did not go at that time. She went in October ’38. And she never knew that her son had been in Dachau, we didn’t let her know. 

Harper: So when did you and your future [husband], I assume at that time, when did you decide to leave Germany? When did you start talking about the idea of leaving Germany?
EMERSON: Actually in ’36. 

Harper: How come? Why?
EMERSON: Why? Because things were getting worse all the time, more difficult see. What the Nazis did, they forbad manufacturers, for instance, to supply merchandise to Jewish retail companies. And, well, my mother had actually in 1929 quit that wholesale and started retail. She always wanted to have a store and I was against it. And that was her good luck because they would have smashed and destroyed that store in 1938, see. 

Harper: So you realized that there was no future for you in Germany?
EMERSON: Yes, sure.

Harper: How about your mother?
EMERSON: Well my mother, you know the older people, a lot of old people… For instance our doctor – we had a Jewish doctor who had been serving also in the First World War – he said he is not going to leave. They cannot make him leave. But he left later on, he came to the United States. And my mother thought no, she didn’t want to leave. And then at the last minute when we had everything ready, she thought she would want to go. So we went to the consulate and tried to get a visa for her too. But they told us we would have to start the whole procedure from the beginning so we didn’t. Well, wait a minute, there was something else…well, yes, anyway we left without her. 

I tried later on but I couldn’t get it. There was too much red tape. We had a friend who had left right in 1933, living in Lisbon, Portugal. And she could have gone there. Actually – well wait a minute, perhaps 1941… I got a letter from the Red Cross saying that my mother could go to Portugal and then wait there for transportation to Kenya. So I tried to get a permit from the Kenya government for my mother to come to Kenya. But they said if she gets a permit to go to Portugal they would give her a permit to come Kenya. And Portugal said if she gets a permit to go to Kenya, they would give her a permit to go to Portugal – red tape! And that never worked out. She was deported in May 1942 and killed. 

Harper: Do you know where she was deported to?
EMERSON: I was, after the war, told by a cousin who lived underground during the war that she died during the transport. Because what they did, they put the people in cattle cars where they couldn’t sit and there were no windows and they had to stand and too many of course in there, so some died on the transport. Nothing to eat, and so… They were allowed to take a small suitcase. Of course the Nazis took that away later on.

Harper: So when you left for Kenya that was the last time you saw your mother?
EMERSON: Yes. I called her before we went aboard the ship, I called her from Hamburg and I had a terrible feeling that this would be the last time I talked to her, and it was. 

Harper: I am interested in how you decided to go to Kenya. I mean did you have this idea that you needed to get out of the country and you tried all of these different places?
EMERSON: No. My husband’s brother-in-law suggested we should go either to Kenya or another country near South Africa and we decided on Kenya. 

Harper: Had you considered Palestine or the United States?
EMERSON: We had considered the United States but I told you we couldn’t get it. The United States were not very helpful at that time, the consulates.

Harper: How about Palestine?
EMERSON: No, we wouldn’t have been able because they asked for a lot of money. I had a distant cousin of mine who was quite well off and he gave the money, the deposit, for several people who wanted to go to Palestine so they could go. But I didn’t know about that. He gave them the money and said send it back to him, then he gave it to somebody else who could go. He helped several people. 

Harper: So you just decided on Africa and Kenya?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: Was it difficult to get a visa?
EMERSON: No. The British consulate in Frankfort did not know about the conditions about which the Kenyan government had set. So they gave us a visa and all we had was a visa. And when we came to Kenya, to Mombasa, they told us you cannot land because you don’t have a permit. But there was a committee and a man, a Jewish businessman who lived in Mombasa, he came to the ship and told us that the committee in Nairobi would guarantee for us that we could land. The immigration officer came in the evening to the ship and said you can go if you come tomorrow. He was at another ship, come over to the ship, and I give you your permit and you can go. So then in the afternoon of that day we took the train to Nairobi. 

Harper: You said that there were a lot of people on the ship from different countries.
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: Were they Jewish people? Were they people escaping the Nazis?
EMERSON: No. Besides my husband and myself, there were eight other people from Germany. Jewish people who went to Kenya too. There was a couple, they were older than we were, and with a 17 year old son. And three young couples about our age, older 30s. One couple from Hamburg, and one from Munich. Actually the one from Munich was a mixed marriage – Jewish man and a wonderful Gentile woman. And so we were three young couples all in our 30s. We were friends as long – almost life long friends after that. 

Harper: You mentioned that a captain of the ship gave a nice speech.
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: Can you remember what he said?
EMERSON: No. The only word I can remember is that he said he wishes all those who are seeking a new home the best of success or happiness. 

Harper: Can you describe Kenya for me? What it was like in those years?
EMERSON: Well, Nairobi under British rule was a very nice, clean city and as modern as Europe at that time. The English people had black servants, men. The black women only took care of babies; they didn’t work in the household. There were houseboys – the English usually had at least three black employees – a houseboy, a younger boy to get firewood and clean shoes, and a cook. And those black cooks were excellent, clean, trained. I worked the first seven months as a nanny in an English family. He was a Kenya government official, a high one. But he didn’t help me get my mother out – he could have. I was there for seven months with a six-year-old boy and a little ten-month-old baby. My husband was sent far away to a farm to learn farming. 

I left the job after seven months and took another one with a very nice older couple from Nova Scotia as a so-called housekeeper companion. I didn’t have to do housework but the black cook we had, he could not make deserts – that’s what I did. And this couple lived on a tea-growing farm. They had a beautiful big house. I had my room upstairs. Very nice, very comfortable, and I made the deserts. I also finally took over to bake bread. I had learned that before I came to those people. I knew how to make breads and I made good ones. I stayed with them for several months until my husband got a good job to manage a farm and I joined him then. 

We had a very nice house, furnished. Not too elegant but very good. I also had a houseboy who could cook – he was trained. And another little boy [chuckles] and we stayed there for two years. Then we left that job and my husband took a job on a coffee farm, which had coffee only. [debates with herself about dates/timing for a few minutes]. Yes, we took a job at a coffee farm where they also grew [word unclear] which is a flower, which is used to make disinfectant. That was the only not very good job. We had an awful house there [laughing]. You know the kitchens on farms were not attached to the house. In Nairobi they were. But on farms they were usually in a separate building and about, lets say, eight to ten yards away from the house. That one job we had to leave because of a former manager who was released from the army. They had to take him back so we left. 

And then we got a very good job on a big farm for three years. By the way, on that one farm where we stayed for two years, there were 400 pigs and a few more breeding sows [laughing]. And of course several kinds of maize, what they call corn, with big white kernels. The natives used (like they have here) that yellow small corn. Then we got that last big farm job for three years. We had a beautiful big house, furnished too. This farm had about 6- or 7,000 acres. A number of acres was corn and they had 200 head of cattle, and 200 pigs again. There was a fruit plantation. We had pineapples, beautiful big pineapples. Twice a year, oranges. Some grapefruit and several kind of bananas. Some which were ripe when they were green out, and some red bananas and some small ones so-called lady fingers. And papayas – big ones! Not like small ones here from Hawaii. That was a beautiful job. I loved it.  

Harper: Were these farms around Nairobi?
EMERSON: No, no. Where my husband started out it was about 300 miles. With the bad roads they had in Kenya it was more than 300 miles [laughing]. You know most roads were earth roads. When you could drive or ride when it was raining, but when the rain stopped it was the soft mud and you had to work to keep on the road. My husband couldn’t drive. I learned to drive in Germany, so that was very handy. We had for one year, before we got that job on that farm, the last farm, a job with a lady who owned a farm. And her son had managed it but he was drafted. She couldn’t drive, she had a Ford truck, so I was driving that. She had another farm somewhere and once a month we went there to inspect. We had a nice social life there. We lived with her in her house and she furnished the meals too. So I was driving her around.

Harper: Did you have any contact with or did you know of any Jewish communities in Kenya?
EMERSON: Oh yes. In Nairobi was a synagogue too. And in one place where we lived there was in that small country town not a synagogue but I think the Free Masons gave us their hall on holy days. We had services there. There were Jewish immigrants coming from Germany, from Austria, from Czechoslovakia, and I think from Poland too. And in the other place where we were there was no synagogue but there was a Russian family who had a hardware store and had been there for many years. In their house we had service and we came from different farms around. There were about 40 people on holidays there. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  

Harper: So all these Jewish people would come from small towns and farms to have services together?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: How about for Shabbat? Did you observe that in your homes on the farms?
EMERSON: Yes. Nothing special. We couldn’t really observe it there. You know, on a farm the work goes on. Had to be taking care of the animals and everything. 

Harper: How did the outbreak of the war in Europe affect your lives? Or did it at all?
EMERSON: Oh yes. I remember when I worked as a nanny I had Friday afternoon and evening off. And there were three more of the ladies which had been on the ship with us. They had jobs, too, as nannies. We got together on Friday afternoons and there was a nice restaurant where we met. And I remember that September 3rd in 1939, I was standing in the street and waiting for the one to come. When she came she said that Hitler had marched into Poland. I said, “Ok.” “That means war,” she said. And I said, “Ok, let them have a war! Perhaps they get rid of him then.” I was right [laughing]. Of course we had enough to eat, during the war – plenty. And you know after the war, in Kenya, we were not allowed to send packages to people in Germany. My husband had an old aunt who lived in southern Germany and was deported to France to a concentration camp. She was one of 50 women who were saved by nuns and taken to a convent in the mountains there near the Spanish border. The Nazis came once and wanted to get the women but the nuns said there are none. They had them hid. Anyway, this aunt survived the war and after the war was taken to a place in the French speaking part of Switzerland. We could send her packages. They didn’t have anything. They didn’t have enough to eat. So we sent packages from Kenya. I wrapped those cans and stuff in material, you know, so they could make clothes from that. We were not allowed to send out imported stuff, but if it was wrapped in it, well then they got it. I learned that from an English lady who had sent material to England this way, see [chuckles]. 

Harper: Were you settled in Kenya? Or did you have in mind leaving? Were you trying to go someplace else?
EMERSON: Oh yes. We were offered by someone… You know there were Indians. Some of them already born in Kenya, and some came from India. And in that one little town, there was a grocery store owned by an Indian, and he invited us once to his house for tea. He said we should buy a farm, that he would give us some money. But we were not interested. We wanted to leave, see. 

Harper: When did you start hearing about what was happening to the Jews in Europe?
EMERSON: We heard something during the war. We got the news. But I did not know about my mother, what happened. My mother had a Jewish lady friend, much younger, about my age. She was a close friend who was Gentile married to a Jew. And they emigrated to Australia. This lady’s mother, a Gentile, she became friendly with my mother and she lived in a small town. And she visited my mother frequently in Frankfort because she had relatives close by. I got, after the war, a letter from this lady saying she visited my mother on May 8th, 1942, and my mother told her that she had to leave the next day. She had eggs and stuff and food with her which she wanted to take to her son and his wife but she left it with my mother. And from her I still have that letter. I knew that my mother would be deported. 

Harper: So were you sort of waiting the war out in Africa?
EMERSON: Yes. Actually we stayed there until July 1948. 

Harper: Why so long?
EMERSON: Because I had an uncle here in Oakland. He wanted to sponsor us, but he passed away suddenly in January ’47. Then I wrote to my aunt, his wife, asking her, mentioning that my uncle had promised to sponsor us and if she would do that. She did not answer. She was somehow offended about something, which I had written; I don’t remember what that was. Something my husband told me to write. I don’t know what it was [chuckling]. Anyway, she didn’t answer. So we waited a reasonable time and then my husband had an old friend in New Haven, Connecticut. We wrote to him and he by return mail asked what we needed and our dates and so on. And he gave us an affidavit and we got a visa then in May ’48. We had trouble to get passage, you know. There were no passenger ships going from Kenya to the United States. Only freighters, which took 12 passengers. They did not like to take people from Mombasa around the cape to Cape Town. Cape Town was usually the last place where they stopped and then the traveled about 16 days up to the United States. You were lucky if they took you to New York, because they said that the first port in the United States where they stop we had to get off. But they went straight through, 16 days from Cape Town up to New York. 

Harper: That’s what you did, you got on the freighter? 
EMERSON: Yes. There was nothing else. The only thing, 47 days [laughs]. I don’t quite remember whether it was 25 days traveling and 22 days in port. We stayed in one port for a whole week because they were waiting for freight to come in from the inner countries there. We stopped in Tanzania and we stopped in Lorenzo Marques, which was under Portuguese rule at the time. A beautiful city and very clean and we stayed there a whole week too. And then we stopped again in Port Elizabeth, South Africa for a day. And then in Durban. Durban was a beautiful city, modern same as at the time as here. Could have been an American city. And then the ship went around the cape to Cape Town where we stayed only half a day. A very interesting city. And then straight up to New York. 

Harper: Was it a difficult trip?
EMERSON: No. Was a nice trip, an enjoyable trip. 

Harper: Had you considered going back to Europe at all?
EMERSON: No. No we wouldn’t have gone back. 

Harper: How come?
EMERSON: Why should we?

Harper: Did you know at that time the full extent of the Holocaust?
EMERSON: Yes. I had a cousin in Cologne, Germany who lived underground. He was married to a Catholic girl and I think last they lived in a convent. He did not convert to the Catholic faith and she did not convert to the Jewish faith. But she stuck with him and she was a wonderful woman. I had known her too. Shortly before the war ended they had an air attack on Cologne and they went to an underground shelter in that convent. A bomb hit it but they got out. They dug them out again. There were of course a number of people in that cellar. And from him, yes, I found his name and address in a paper – wait a minute, were we here already? No. There is a newspaper coming from New York, I get it still – it is partly German partly English, and there were names and addresses of survivors in it. So I got in contact with that cousin again, see. [pause]. No, I mean, there were some people who went back to Germany. And I think there were people who did get along or felt happy in foreign countries. They were from South America and perhaps some from here, but I don’t think there many. They got help from the German government then. They gave them money and helped them to get a house or apartment.  

Harper: Did your husband lose a lot of family?
EMERSON: Yes. [pause]. I don’t know. We had no contact. But there were some. I think some came to the United States.

Harper: So you arrived in New York in 1948?
EMERSON: Yes.

Harper: And then what happened?
EMERSON: Then we stayed in New York for a week. We had friends there and relatives – distant relatives, cousins. And then we went to New Haven and stayed with those friends for three weeks. They would have liked us to stay, but we had already decided on Portland. Because we wanted to go to a moderate climate after had been living for 10 years in the hot climate. And we had friends here from Germany who had come here before, here to Portland. They told us Portland has a mild climate; you can wear a raincoat in the winter – [laughing] which is not quite true always. And so we decided on Portland. 

Harper: And you arrived here in what year?
EMERSON: Here in Portland in November 1948.

Harper: Did you start working immediately? Where did you live?
EMERSON: These friends had rented a room for us in a house owned by a Jewish family from Germany. That was an awful place down in South Portland. Not very clean. So we looked in the newspaper ads and I went to a house on 30th in Northeast [Owing] Street. There was an old Gentile American couple who rented the upper floor of their house and we took that and moved in the same day. It was furnished and we had kitchen privileges. We stayed there for two and a half years. They were very nice people; I got along wonderfully with the lady. Never any trouble or any fight. 

The first Saturday when we were here, there was a Portland Friendship Club and they had about 400 members – German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian, and Polish Jewish people. And that first – oh yeah, we had an address from somebody here in Portland, a Jewish man from Germany. We called and he said yes, come over. That was on a Saturday and they took us to an evening of the Portland Friendship Club. They had a show there. They had very talented members and it was a very nice evening. Next to me sat a very elegant lady and the president of the club made a speech and welcomed one other lady newcomer and us. He said we were from Kenya. When the lady next to me heard that she said Kenya, they are my best friends [chuckling]. When she gave us a name, I said yes we knew them, they came once to our farm and bought pigs from us. The world is small sometimes. 

She had a dress store here on Alder and 9th, I can’t remember the name. It was long ago gone already. She specialized later on in bride gowns. And she had an old uncle here who was living in, or maybe perhaps born here in America, and he asked my husband to come and he took my husband around but with no success. He couldn’t find a job. But, are you familiar with Portland? He took him to White Stag and old Mr. Hirsch, the president, came as a young boy of 14 here to Portland and he came from a city in Germany where Peter’s family was living. Oh I don’t know whether it was an uncle or what. But anyway, we had another name – we changed our name to Emerson – name was [Epsheimer?]. So Mr. Hirsch said he does not hire men but he told my husband you are two representatives, you should go on the road, be a salesman. But he asked him if he had family so he said to send him his wife. So I went there. I had no idea what it was, that company [laughing], and he hired me – that was after two weeks here in Portland. Got an office job there. It was actually my line – the last year in Nairobi I had been working at the [Bottler’s] Bank, that’s the biggest English bank. So, I got an office job and stayed there for more than 16 years.  

Harper: And did your husband find work?
EMERSON: Not right away, he had a little trouble. My husband was 51 at the time when we got here and I was 46. Mr. Hirsch called his office manager, she interviewed me, and I told her I was 38 – I was 46 but I didn’t look it [laughing]. And well she hired me. They had at the time started a new system – an addressing system – it doesn’t exist anymore. It was sort of a forerunner for the computer system because we had machines, we made address plates for each customer, and a tag sewn with the name on, and there were tapes on the frame which indicated each tape and each hole indicated something. And we could run lists on the one machine of all customers by line, which they bought, or by salesman districts. Was an interesting job and I set up the whole thing. I learned how to run these machines and with the company getting bigger and bigger it was a very interesting job. I didn’t have a boss there. They only told me what they needed and when they needed it. Nobody could tell me how to, I worked it out.

Harper: Were you involved with the Jewish community? For example, did you belong to a synagogue?
EMERSON: Yes. 

Harper: Which one?
EMERSON: To the Neveh Shalom. At the time they had a cantor who came from Germany. That’s how we got to that. 

Harper: And so what did your husband finally start doing as a job?
EMERSON: He got a very good job for an automatic company and stayed there for a number of years. Then he helped a young man to find a job there and that young man – I think he was driving a truck – the one boss caught him one day in downtown at something where he shouldn’t have been so he released him and he thought that my husband was the uncle and he was a drunkard, he drank a lot, so he said, “The nephew had to go then the uncle has to go to.” So he got two weeks notice and when the office manager gave him his check she was trampling he said, it wasn’t justified that they fired him. It was a good job. And then he got another job. Also later on he worked for several years at White Stag at the office. 

Harper: Do you have children?
EMERSON: No. As I said I was 36 when I got married and by the time we got settled in Kenya with having a nice house on the farm, we didn’t have a telephone, we didn’t have electricity, [laughing] and sometimes I wonder how we managed. No food spoiled! Usually we had a pantry for the food, to keep it, and we went to town shopping once a week and nothing got spoiled. And I got sidetracked again…

Harper: Do you ever miss Africa?
EMERSON: No, no of course not, especially not now under black rule. Kenya was comparatively quiet but you know there were in a lot of these states when the colonial powers left there was trouble. 

Harper: Have you ever been back to Germany?
EMERSON: Once on a trip from here. We went on a trip organized by the Oregon Automobile Club. On a charter plane, was 250 people. We flew from here to Zurich, Switzerland. Stayed there for a few days and took optional trips to other cities surrounding and from there we were taken to Innsbruck, Austria for several days and it was beautiful too. From there we were taken to Munich and stayed there for five days, but we did not go to Frankfort. I met there my high school friend who had gone back to Germany and she had a job at a sort of university. She was a lady who spoke five foreign languages and they didn’t let her go [chuckling] – she worked until the age of 70. Actually after I left White Stag I stayed home for a year and meanwhile my husband who was then retired had a part time job here in a retail store and his boss asked me if I would work for him too. So I said yes, one morning. I worked there on Monday mornings. When the work got too much I took work home and it got more and more and we worked for another five or six years. Then we both finally retired and did some traveling. 

Harper: Was it strange to be back in Germany? Was it uncomfortable?
EMERSON: No, I was ice cold. When we entered Germany I was ice cold. I had no emotion. We stayed in an American style hotel. Yes, that was the only time that we were in Germany.

Harper: Is your husband still living?
EMERSON: No, my husband passed away in 1984. 

Harper: Did you eventually buy a house?
EMERSON: Here? We were once honored but we didn’t.

Harper: Or rather did you move from that house that you were originally in in Northeast Portland, the one where you rented the upstairs?
EMERSON: Yes. We moved to Northeast Everett, we stayed in Northeast. We stayed there for many years. I don’t know why. We could have moved to one of the high-rise buildings. When we moved into that place it was modern for the time. And we just stayed there. 

Harper: Do you have any questions, Lanie?
Reich: Yes. I wanted to ask you some more about Kenya, during the war? Now the Italian army was in Abyssinia, right? 
EMERSON: The Italian army was north of Kenya in Eritrea, or Abyssinia. 

Reich: Was Tanzania German or was Uganda German?
EMERSON: What?

Reich: Which colony was German?
EMERSON: The German’s had no colonies anymore after…They lost that when they lost the First World War. Like Tangania [now Tanzania] next to Kenya was a German colony and on the west coast they had several. They lost all of that. 

Reich: Was the British army in Kenya fighting the Italians?
EMERSON: No, not the British. There were South American soldiers. I think about 40,000 came to Kenya and up to the Abyssinia border, and the Italians didn’t want to fight. There were about 50,000 Italian prisoners of war in Kenya in different prison camps. Some went out on farms to work there. And on that last farm where we were we had two Italians working for us. One was a truck… [interrupted by a knock on the door – nurse asking about lunch]. 

Reich: In Kenya, were they enlisting soldiers? Were the British enlisting in Kenya?
EMERSON: Oh yes, the English people, yes.

Reich: One of the women you worked for, her son went into the British army?
EMERSON: Yes. My husband actually applied too but they didn’t take him because we were not British subjects.

Reich: Were there refugees coming down from Ethiopia to Kenya because of the Italian invasion?
EMERSON: No, not that I know of. 

Reich: Towards the end of your stay in Kenya, like in 1947, did you see any of the beginnings of the Kenyan revolution, of the revolutionaries and guerilla fighters?
EMERSON: No, actually it was shortly after we left that…what was it called…wait a minute. No, it was after we were gone, so. 

Reich: There was nothing going on?
EMERSON: No.

Reich: Did you ever get to meet Beryl Markham?
EMERSON: Never heard of that. Who is that?

Reich: She was a famous Kenyan woman.
EMERSON: No. 

Reich: Was there a war climate in Kenya at that time? Or was it not very important? Living in Kenya, did you feel like there was a war going on or was it not really an important thing? Were people talking about the war?
EMERSON: Sure, we got the newspaper! All the news about the war in Europe and wherever it was. And the landing of the American troops in Africa and the fighting way up. Oh yes. We knew everything.  

Reich: Because it was a British colony, did people treat you differently because you were German?
EMERSON: Yes, we had restrictions at first. We were not interred. When the war broke out on September 3, 1939, they arrested the foreigners – Jewish or Gentile. My husband was in a church in Nairobi and the big door gates were open – they could have walked anytime. And we could visit them and my husband had had an accident on the farm. He injured his shoulder and his right hand and he was taken to the hospital there in that little town. And the very nice doctor, he operated on his hand and didn’t charge anything. 

Then my husband came back to Nairobi and he had his arm still in a sling. I had gotten a farm job for him. There was a government official who had a farm near Nairobi and he needed someone to manage it because he was working in Nairobi. But there was not accommodation for both of us [laughs]. My husband had the meals with the family but he had a separate one-room building where he stayed. I left that job with the English family – as I said I worked as a nanny – because they got a vacation and they couldn’t go to England so they went to Mombasa and they wanted to take me with them. I didn’t want to go there, to the heat there. You know when you got dressed you could take your clothes off again and take a shower again. And so I told them my husband didn’t want me to go. So I left there. Yes, shortly afterwards I got that job with that very fine Canadian couple and it was a very good job, wonderful time I had there. 

Reich: Was Kenya supplying the war effort for England? Were you sending food and clothes into England for the war?
EMERSON: Oh yes. Sure, the English people sent food, like Kenya butter in cans and I don’t know what else. Sent it to their families in England, oh yes. 

Reich: Were British ships, warships, coming to Kenya?
EMERSON: Oh yes, but we were not allowed to go to Mombasa during the war because we were not British citizens yet. And actually we never got the British citizenship because we wanted to leave anyway, so we were not interested in that. 

Reich: Why didn’t you want to stay in Kenya?
EMERSON: Well, two of our friends, couples, they stayed there until the blacks took over. They stayed there until ’61 or ’62. One couple went to England; they had then British citizenship. And another couple went to Australia. And lots of the Jewish former immigrants went to Australia and some here to the United States. 

Reich: What became of your grandparents?
EMERSON: Oh, they passed away. Grandmother died in ’38, she was living with us in Frankfort. My grandfather died in 1920 or so. 

Reich: That’s all the questions I have. 
Harper: Do you have a message… INTERVIEW ENDS HERE