Camel from Kyzylkum

Our bus brought our group of people to a gorgeous place high in the Alps mountains. There were about four houses in the tiny village, as well as a hotel and an RV park. It was a place where people were coming for skiing or for hiking in the mountains. Some of us were put in the hotel and others were assigned to the private houses—I was among the latter group.

The house I was placed in was quite big, with simple but comfortable furniture and decor, and it was exceptionally clean. The owners, husband and wife, were in their late sixties and retired. They were very kind people, and the husband liked to make jokes—we knew that because he tried to explain his jokes to us. They spoke only German and we spoke only Russian, so our communication was by gestures and guesses. I and another woman who was traveling solo—Lilya—were placed in the same room and shared one king-size bed. What has stayed in my memory from that home was a down blanket/comforter—it was so cozy and warm to sleep under this blanket on cold winter nights, and it was fluffy and weightless as a cloud. We shared the bathroom with another family that had a room on the second level of the house, next to us. On the first level, I think, two more families had rooms. The food was provided for us in the restaurant at the hotel, and we did not have to pay for it—it was paid for by HIAS. A special time for breakfast and dinner was allocated in this restaurant just for the refugee group.

Our group was comprised of Jewish and Russian families or mixed families, and three solo traveling women, including me. Some images are imprinted in my memory from that time. For instance, one young family that stood out included a husband and wife with five children, from six months to five or six years. The wife was an absolutely beautiful woman with dark, free-falling hair that reached her waistline. Her manners were calm and splendid, her posture displayed pride and competence, and positive energy radiated from her. The husband was very cordial, and the children well-behaved, but the wife was definitely the moral and spiritual center of this religious family—they all said grace before a meal, not something I saw often in the Soviet Union. I wondered how they could manage to be so calm and collected with five little children in a situation where they had to leave everything behind and did not know what lay ahead.

Another image in my memory is of a Russian peasant woman in her sixties, from a little Siberian village, dressed as a real Russian “babushka,” meaning an old woman or grandmother. She traveled alone and had no family left in Siberia, nor any family waiting for her in the States.

The woman with whom I shared the room, Lilya, was approximately the same age as I was. She was a Jewish girl from Belarus, and she had never been married. Her parents stayed in Belarus and sent her to find happiness in a faraway land. A few years after we arrived in America, she got married and had a child.

I got friendly with a woman named Irma who traveled with her family. Her husband was named Leo and her teenage son was Daniel. Irma was a scientist from Minsk, the capital of Belarus. She was very attractive, intelligent, and bright. She was half Jewish, half Russian, and her husband Leo was also Jewish. Irma was already fluent in English. We liked to walk together and talk. Irma tried to teach me the very basics of English. They had relatives in Chicago where they finally arrived, and they chose to build their life there. Both of them did very well and got high-paying jobs. They also bought a house. Their son Daniel went to college.