Oral History Telling Evening with Rita Goldhor
October 24, 2009

“I was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1927, and I am Jewish. At the time of the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Germany I was not yet 12 years old, so there was much I did not understand about the political situation. I have never been to Germany - except passing through on a train to Holland in March 1939, on my way to England as a Kindertransport child.

I lived in England, largely in foster homes and hostels, until 1945, when I came to the United States, to eventually be reunited with my parents who had fled to Shanghai, and had to wait another two years from the end of WWII to be allowed to enter the United States. Their boat from the Far East landed in San Francisco, and thus we all ended up on the West Coast, where I have lived since 1948. My husband Sidney (a refugee from Brooklyn as he likes to call himself) and I have now been married for 60 years and still live in the same house in San Leandro, where we have lived since November 1949. Too much moving around when I was young, I guess!

When people, hearing my accent, ask me where I am from, I tell them I am from San Leandro. That's easier than telling them the long story of how I got here, but I’ll be happy (?) to share my story on October 24th. Perhaps “happy” is not quite the right word for how one feels in reviewing the past, but perhaps this will become part of the discussion.”