The Immigrant
by Lucy Pacheco
It is 1938
and the sky was gray.You
could feel tension
in the still air. As
I was
looking out my
bedroom window,
I could see
the Police Station. And for
the first time I
saw a
different flag hanging other than our Austrian flag. This
flag had a
swastika on
it, it was
a Nazi flag. At the time
I didn't
know the
meaning of
it but I
did feel
there was
something wrong.
Usually there are
children on the street laughing
and playing, but not today. There
was hardly anyone on
the street;
it looked
like a day of mourning. No
one could guess
what laid ahead, the whole
city had
changed overnight.
I could sense
that there was
going to be
some bad times ahead,
but I had
no idea how bad. My mom was standing
next to me starring out
the window, as
I looked up
at her I
noticed how
she was twisting her handkerchief and
tears came
rolling down
her face; then
she said "Oh
dear God, not again" "Haven't I
suffered enough pain in my
life?" Then
my mother took me
by the hand
and guided me
to her bed
and sat me
down then put
her arm around me, she started
to tell me about her
life when she was
a young girl.
"I was born in
a little
town called Tluste, Poland. I
had 6 brothers and
4 sisters, some
of them
died at an early age. My parents
owned a grocery
store which gave us
respect in the community
not to
mention that we
lived quite well. In our
community everybody helped everybody when
in need. When
I became of
age the matchmaker
introduced me
to my
husband to-be. We
fell in love immediately, he
was tall,
dark, and handsome
with blue eyes. His
name was Hersh and
he came from a very fine family
that was well-educated and rich. He
had the
choice of choosing
any one of
us girls for
his bride and
he chose me."
"Now that we
are engaged, he
was allowed
to take me
out as long
as there
was a chaperon. Holding hands was all
that was
accepted but
we snuck
a few
kisses here and there, once, the
chaparone caught us
kissing but
he just
turned his head
and pretended
he didn't
see it."
