January 24, 2010

And the trip continues!

So, we are at the Belgrade International Airport. Our plane was chartered by some group or the US government for the transport of Hungarian refugees. It was a prop plane since jets didn't exist at this time.

Since we never saw the inside of an airplane we couldn't tell if it was well equipped or not. It had pilots and stewardesses and none of them spoke Hungarian.

We made intermediate stops in Frankfurt Germany, Reykjavik Iceland and Gander New Foundland before reaching New York.

At each stop we left the plane, got fed then back up in the air. Don't know how long the trip took but best estimate is that it was around thirty hours.

Since nobody ever flew many people got airsick. The barf bags came very handy once it was clear what their purpose was.

We finally landed in New York. Today's JFK International Airport then was called Idlewild Airport.

I remember the date being October 31, 1957 and I'll tell you why in a minute. We boarded buses and were transported somewhere. We had no clue where and what was going to happen. But there were no guards just some escorts and friendly bus drivers.

It turned out we were going to Brooklyn. We were bused through the local streets and everybody was very curiously looking out the windows. We wanted to see what the real Americans looked like, did they really had two heads as we were made to believe.

By now, it was dark, I don't know what time. As the buses slowed down or stopped at intersections we saw people with young kids and all were dressed kind of funny. The kids were dressed in various costumes. We all looked at each other not knowing what this meant. We said that these Americans are really weird people.

Later we realized that it was Halloween and that was the reason. Americans are still weird people!

We were all taken to a large hotel in Brooklyn for processing. There we already were met by Hungarian speaking officials who sorted out our motley crew. I think we were fed and assigned private rooms in the hotel and very late at night finally went to sleep in the New World that became our new home for the rest of our life.

From this day on life became a struggle.

Learning a new language, getting oriented, finding our niche in life, assimilate and trying to succeed and rising out of the commonalities of life.

None of these things were easy but almost everybody I know succeeded one way or the other. At least all my friends did.

A great many of us tried to keep in touch here at first but as time went by a lot of us lost contact with each other.

It was interesting that in the early years if we heard somebody speak Hungarian on the street we would talk to the person just so we could speak with someone else. Later on as English became almost like our first language stopping someone just because he spoke Hungarian didn't happen very frequently. At least not in New York.

Fifty three years here is more than a lot of people lived altogether.

Most of us still keep our contacts with friends and family back in Hungary. We visit occasionally but it is not our home anymore. It is a country where we are fluent at the language but totally illiterate at today's customs.

The only thing is that I still love Hungarian food some awful.

Sometimes we talk about if could we live there now. The answer is invariably no!

Good or bad, this is our home now.