An anniversary

Just remembering decades ago..... on January 7th 1952, I landed in New York as an immigrant, after a dramatic  transatlantic  journey from Bremenhaven, on the "M/S Gen. Henry Taylor",  a carrier of the Military Sea Transportation Service of the United States Navy.  The incredible hurricane that was raging in the Atlantic at that time required rerouting of the ship's course due to its dangerously bouncing up and down by giant waves, which washed away with great force the ship's decks. Our arrival at destination was delayed by about 5 days. 

With great relief we reached the New York harbor on Sunday night, and were temporarily anchored in the bay until the next morning, when the stevedores became available to unload our carrier. Monday  was a very cold and a snowy day, spent mostly at the NYC Pier before being accommodated into a small NY midtown hotel toward evening. 

I traveled with my Mother and hundreds other immigrants, under the auspices of the US Immigration Service operating in Europe with the United Nations, first by special train, for three days, from Italy through Germany. Then, after spending 2 nights and Christmas Day in a huge (6,000 occupants) distribution camp in the village of Grohn, we were booked to travel on the above ship with 1200 other immigrants from all over northern Europe and the Russian countries.  

Since about  300 of us had no specific destination at arrival, at disembarkation, we had to wait for the others to be routed to other forms of transportation out of NYC.  We were kept warm, and fed all day in the waiting rooms of the pier until that evening, when we were lodged in hotels. We remained there only for a couple of days, the time necessary by a variety of agencies to take over the task of finding us work and accommodations elsewhere.

That's the beginning of my life in the new land 61 years ago, to the day!