LEVINE:

This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service, and I'm here today at Ellis Island. It's October 19, 1991, and I'm here with Morris Weiner, who came from Poland in 1923 when he was twelve years old. So I welcome you on this beautiful day, and we'll start, Mr. Weiner, by you telling me your birth date.

WEINER:

Thank you. My birth date is August the 8th, 1911.

LEVINE:

And where were you born?

WEINER:

I was born in Kostopol, Poland.

LEVINE:

Now, do you remember that town?

WEINER:

I sure do.

LEVINE:

Oh, good. Can you describe it?

WEINER:

Well, it was a small town. We had a river right along side of us in back of the house, and we had an orchard in the other side of the house. And the house that we lived in, we had two cows and we had about twelve or fifteen chickens. And we lived in that house. My mother, myself, my sister, my brother, two uncles, my grandmother and my grandfather all lived in one little house.

LEVINE:

Could you describe the house?

WEINER:

The house was a single house. It had five rooms and a big barn. And we had a little yard outside the house which during the summer we grew little vegetables there like carrots or cabbage, stuff like that.

LEVINE:

And what was your father's name?

WEINER:

My father's name was Samuel.

LEVINE:

And what did he do for work?

WEINER:

My father had his own chair factory in Poland that is Kostopol. And when the war was just about starting to break, the First World War, my father decided that he didn't want to go into war. He took, he had a chair factory, he left it. He took his younger brother, which was fifteen years old. His name was Isaac, and he said, "You come with me." And they both left for America. When my father was here about two or three years he sent a letter to us that he wants to take us over. My mother didn't want to leave because she had her mother was still alive. Her father was gone. She had a sister, and she had three brothers. She had nobody in this country outside of my father. So she told my father, she wrote him back that is, telling him that she doesn't think she wants to go to America. In the meantime, writing back and forth, the war broke out and it stopped everything. We couldn't communicate. We didn't know whether he was alive. He didn't know whether we were alive. After the war ended, around 1918, we got a letter from my father stating, "I'm going to ask you for the last time if you want to come to America. Either tell me yes or no. If your decision is no . . .

LEVINE:

Take your time.

WEINER:

( he is moved ) If your decision is no, we're all through." So my mother made out her mind, made up her mind that she was going to come. So she wrote him back and he bought us tickets. We called them Schiffs Karte, Schiffs Karte, you know, to come to America. And he applied for us. We had to wait for a visa. We waited about two years until we were able to get a visa. In the meantime, we went to Warsaw. That's where we were supposed to get a visa there, and we stayed there for about a year-and-a-half or two years until our turn came up to get the visa. Once we got the visa we left for the ship, which we were about to sail from Antwerp. When we got to Antwerp, unfortunately our ship was already filled and there was no room for us. So we had to wait for the next boat to leave. We were fortunate enough, lucky enough that is to say, not that we did not get a room to get on the first ship, because that boat sunk. And we got on the second ship. We got on the second ship. We were placed in third class, which was way down on the bottom. All we could see if we looked out of the window is the fish running through the window up and down. That's all we could see. We slept in bunks, didn't even have a mattress, just on wood with clothing under our heads. We were on the third class, which is the last one on the bottom next to the boiler. It took us three weeks to get here. We were all deathly sick on the boat. Finally after three weeks we arrived to Ellis Island and we had to wait here quite a few days to go through the exams, and the scrubbing and washing, whatever they done to us. But it was petrifying thinking, "What if I don't pass the exam?" But fortunately we all passed the exam, and my father met us. This was the first time that I saw my father. I never knew my father. My father left. When my father left I was eighteen months old. My sister wasn't even born when he left. My mother was pregnant with my sister.

LEVINE:

Well, before we go into your experience at Ellis and coming here, let's go back to Poland during that time. Your father left, you were eighteen months. So when you were growing up, then, you were mostly with your grandmother.

WEINER:

I was mostly with my grandmother and my grandfather, my mother and my uncles, and they supported us.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Now, what was your mother's maiden name?

WEINER:

Uh, Heid. Rose Heid.

LEVINE:

And tell me what your mother was like.

WEINER:

My mother was a beautiful woman, very caring.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Do you remember any experiences in Poland that have to do with your mother that are kind of what you think of when you think back at that time?

WEINER:

When I think back, my mother had to go out and work a lot of times, washing or scrubbing for somebody so we could have something to eat. There was many nights we went to bed hungry. We had nothing to eat.

LEVINE:

How about your uncles? What were they doing for work?

WEINER:

My uncles had a clothing store in a square, and they were in business for years. Then when the war broke out everything fell apart. So during the four years of war it was very hard for us, awfully hard. We were driven from one city to the other. Today it was Russia, tomorrow it was Poland, and the Bolsheviks came in, drove us out of Russia and drove us into Poland.

LEVINE:

Do you remember this? Can you remember incidents happening?

WEINER:

Oh, yeah. I remember the bombs flying, coming down over our heads. We had to run down the cellar and hide in the cellar for many days. Many days we were down, down the cellar, without any food at all, because we couldn't get upstairs. We'd probably get hit with a bomb.

LEVINE:

Is there any, do you have any other memories of that time?

WEINER:

Well, I went to school in Poland. I went to Polish school. I went there for four years. And I knew Polish very well when I came here, Polish and Jewish, very well.

LEVINE:

Did you have a religious familY?

WEINER:

Yes.

LEVINE:

How did you, to what extent did you celebrate holidays, or did you . . .

WEINER:

In the old country?

LEVINE:

Yeah.

WEINER:

Oh, yeah. We used to celebrate Passover, New Year's, Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. You know what those holidays are. We used to celebrate all those holidays. And then we celebrated the Gentile holidays just as well. We had to.

LEVINE:

Was the town that you lived in about an equal mix of Gentiles and Jews?

WEINER:

It was mixed. I would say it was like three-quarters Jewish. Yeah.

LEVINE:

And what were the relations like between the Gentiles and the Jewish people?

WEINER:

Not very good, not very good, no.

LEVINE:

Do you remember any incidents that stand out in your mind?

WEINER:

Well, we had an orchard in back of the house which didn't belong to our house, and we used to go in the, we were kids, going during the night and steal apples and pears so we'd have some fruit for the next day. And we used to pull, put it all into our shirts, inside the shirt, and button up the belt, and watch for the man if he didn't send out the dogs. He used to have dogs there. And once we saw the dogs running we just pulled out the shirt and let everything go out, it would be easier for us to run. ( Dr. Levine laughs )

LEVINE:

Now, before the war broke out, were you, what was your town like then? Do you have fond memories of your life there?

WEINER:

Our town was the only town that had a train going through it. It's the only town that had a train going through it. And once like in four-to-six months we'd see a car go by, and the whole town would run out in the street, "There's a car coming! Watch the car come!" Or an airplane fly by. We'd be outside waiting. Somebody would tell there's a plane going to go by.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So this was a rural town, a small town.

WEINER:

A very small town.

LEVINE:

And what was the major, uh, was it farming? What was the major occupation of people who lived there?

WEINER:

There wasn't too much industry there. It was more or less like a marketplace. It was like every two weeks, like that you'd call it here a flea market. All the farmers used to come in and display all the fruits and vegetables in the market and people would come out and buy whatever, if you had money to buy it. They'd come, you'd come out and buy whatever you want, see. That was twice a month. It was like the first of the month and the fifteenth of the month.

LEVINE:

I see. But you raised some vegetables yourself.

WEINER:

Very little. We had chickens, we had our own eggs, we had our own milk, we had our own butter. And we used to bake our own bread.

LEVINE:

Can you remember the kinds of meals your mother would prepare? Like what would be something . . .

WEINER:

Whatever she could put her hands on. Yeah. Whatever she could put her hands on. Mostly what we used to eat was mostly chicken, because that was the easiest thing to get. That was the easiest thing to get, yeah.

LEVINE:

Now, what were your uncles' names?

WEINER:

One was Abraham, one he took with him was Isaac, that my father took with him when he left. One was Jacob.

LEVINE:

Was it Abraham and Jacob, then, that were in the house, too?

WEINER:

Yeah.

LEVINE:

And how about your brother and sister? What are their names?

WEINER:

My sister's name was, the way they called her here? Dorothy. And my brother's name was Louis. My brother was four years older than me.

LEVINE:

I see. And were you closest to any particular member of your family?

WEINER:

Was I close with? We were all, we had to be close together in order to stay together. We had to be close together, yeah.

LEVINE:

Now, do you have any recollections of school when you were in Poland?

WEINER:

Yes. I went to the Polish school for four years. I remember very good. The first thing we had to do when we came in we had to salute the Polish flag. If you didn't they'd throw you right out of the room. Salute the flag when you came in and salute the flag when you went out.

LEVINE:

Now, was there a difference in the school? Did you go to school when you were in Russia, then?

WEINER:

That was Poland.

LEVINE:

That was Poland.

WEINER:

When I started going to school it belonged to Poland.

LEVINE:

Oh, I see, I see.

WEINER:

Yeah. When I was born it was Russia.

LEVINE:

It was Russia. So did you have any feeling about saluting the Polish flag?

WEINER:

Well, I had to. I had to do it, whether I wanted to or not. I had to do it, yeah.

LEVINE:

How did your family feel about being, then, in Poland when you had actually started out in Russia?

WEINER:

We, well, they knew how to speak Russian too, but I didn't, because I wasn't old enough to learn Russian. But I did learn in Poland. I spoke very good Polish when I came here, excellent Polish. Because when I came here as a rule they put you into first or second grade. I was put right into the sixth grade when I came here. I was twelve years old. I went right into the sixth grade. It was difficult for me because I couldn't speak English. I did pretty good.

LEVINE:

Okay. Well, let's now say, what was, when your mother decided that she was going to come, then how did you feel about coming here?

WEINER:

Wonderful.

LEVINE:

You wanted to come.

WEINER:

I wanted to come see my father, yeah. Wonderful to get out of the old country there.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So you were looking forward to coming.

WEINER:

Exactly.

LEVINE:

Now, do you remember what you packed when you were starting out to come?

WEINER:

Whatever we had. We didn't have too much. Probably had like two pair of pants and one pair, if I had one pair of shoes I was lucky. When our shoes were torn we didn't have any money to put on soles on them. Even in the winter on the cold days we used to wrap, we had no stockings. We'd wrap our feet first in cloth. Then if the shoe had a hole in it, we'd put a couple of pieces of cardboard inside to make it look like an innersole. Then we'd put the foot inside. During the summer we never wore shoes because we couldn't afford to wear shoes in the summer. We wouldn't have anything to wear in the winter. So we had to go barefoot all summer long.

LEVINE:

Do you remember when you were in Poland what you enjoyed doing there? Do you remember enjoyable times?

WEINER:

Enjoyable, really nothing, because we were always under fire, always under fire. Really nothing enjoyable. My enjoyment was when we hit America.

LEVINE:

Okay. So when you decided to come then you packed the few things that you had, and you went to Antwerp. Is that where you . . .

WEINER:

We sailed out of Antwerp.

LEVINE:

Well, how did you get from where you were living.

WEINER:

By train from Warsaw, to Antwerp, we went by train. We had cousins in Paris. They came out to see us just before we went on ship.

LEVINE:

Oh. So do you remember anything about that train ride?

WEINER:

The train ride, it wasn't the most pleasant ride because those trains in those days they were like, today they ship cows and horses in those kinds of trains, we came across.

LEVINE:

They were like a freight car.

WEINER:

A freight car, exactly, yeah.

LEVINE:

Okay. So then when you got to Antwerp, did you know your cousins who came to see you off?

WEINER:

I really didn't know them, but my mother did, see. Because when they, when they moved, when they left Russia and they went to Paris I don't think I was even born.

LEVINE:

I see. Well, what was it like seeing them?

WEINER:

Paris was beautiful.

LEVINE:

So you stopped off in Paris.

WEINER:

Yeah. We were there like a day or so on the way.

LEVINE:

Can you remember anything about it?

WEINER:

Paris was like a dream. I never knew the world could be that beautiful in comparison with Kostopol, where I was born.

LEVINE:

And then, so when, was it a joyous occasion when you had your sendoff from Antwerp?

WEINER:

Oh, it was such a beautiful enjoyment. To get on that boat, I wouldn't have cared even if I slept on the floor on the boat all the way down here in twenty-three days. And the ride on the ocean was unbelievable, it was so scary. There was waves in the middle of the Atlantic. My God, you say to yourself, "Are we ever going to get to America?" But fortunately we did.

LEVINE:

Do you remember the name of the ship that you were going . . .

WEINER:

I don't. It was the Cunard Line, but the name of the ship I do not remember.

LEVINE:

Do you remember the name of the ship you were going to take and that you didn't take.

WEINER:

No, I don't remember that neither, no. No, I don't, no.

LEVINE:

So was there anything else about being aboard ship that was new to you, or that you remember?

WEINER:

It was very exciting because we were never in a ship before. In the old country we used to go in those little boats. We had a river behind the house. We used to go on those little boats there and go out fishing, but we'd never seen boats this size in my life.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. So did you go up on deck and were there other children up there.

WEINER:

We were on deck all day long. Oh, yeah. It was quite a few kids, yeah. If you wanted to get a little fresh air you had to come up on the deck, otherwise you're stuck on the third floor in the bottom. If you'd get on the deck it was beautiful. The only thing, you'd look out and see those waves, you'd be scared so.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Now, do you remember seeing the Statue of Liberty when you . . .

WEINER:

Oh, yeah. They called us all up on top of the ship, on the boat, that we'd be hitting America in a few hours, and we could see the Statue of Liberty from way out there, way out in the water, yeah, yeah.

LEVINE:

And what was it like? What did people do? How did you feel?

WEINER:

Well, we started to get our baggage together and get off the boat, and we didn't know what we were going to get at, and go through all those exams that we went through.

LEVINE:

Now, do you remember approaching Ellis Island?

WEINER:

Yes.

LEVINE:

And what was your impression when you first got there?

WEINER:

I couldn't wait to see the inside of it to see what it is all about.

LEVINE:

And what . . .

WEINER:

This is America. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And what did you see? What did you see when you got in?

WEINER:

All we saw was thousands of people in here sitting on the benches there all lined up.

LEVINE:

And what, were there things, how long did you stay at Ellis Island?

WEINER:

We were here, I would say, close to a week before we went through.

LEVINE:

I see. So what do you remember about that week? Things that were new to you, or what happened to you?

WEINER:

In Ellis Island what I can remember, I slept on a wooden, on a wooden ( he laughs ) it was wooden beds here too, you know.

LEVINE:

Wooden beds?

WEINER:

Yeah. Sleeping like sleeping on boards, yeah. And at least we had food to eat.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Was the food good?

WEINER:

In comparison to what we had it was excellent.

LEVINE:

And do you remember seeing things for the first time, things you had never seen before?

WEINER:

In Ellis Island? Well, we saw a lot of doctors, I'll tell you that.

LEVINE:

And you had not seen a doctor before that time.

WEINER:

Never saw a doctor in my life. If we had to see a doctor, a pharmacist was our doctor. We used to go into the pharmacy and tell him your problems. If you had a cough or a bellyache or a headache or whatever and he'd look at you and he'd give you something, see.

LEVINE:

So this was a first, seeing a doctor.

WEINER:

If you wanted to see a doctor, you had to go into Warsaw. Or the nearest place to Kostopol was Rowno, was called. That was a bigger city already, and there were doctors there and hospitals. But the town that I come from, there was no such thing. Just a pharmacy, and he'd prescribe you whatever he thought was good for you.

LEVINE:

I see. Well, what was your experience seeing the doctor here at Ellis Island?

WEINER:

It was entirely new. I never knew what a doctor was until he started examining us and giving us those hot baths here. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

Oh, they gave you a hot bath? What was that like?

WEINER:

Oh, hot baths, and they gave us brushes to scrub ourselves and clean ourselves around, yeah. We were clean anyways.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. And did you, what did, with the examination, did you . . .

WEINER:

Frightening, very frightening. I saw a lot of people being taken out of the line. They took them out of line, they must have been either sick or that person didn't look good to the doctor, whatever. If your eyes were no good or whatever they'd pull you right out of line and put a mark on your head so the next fellow coming behind him would take you out of line. And they'd keep you here until they could correct your problem or, God forbid, they'd have to send you back.

LEVINE:

So that was frightening that you might be . . .

WEINER:

It was, it was, yeah. But thank God we all passed the exams and were allowed to get off.

LEVINE:

Had you heard about Ellis Island before you left? Did you have some idea?

WEINER:

We heard of Ellis Island in the old country.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Do you remember what you thought before you got here?

WEINER:

We used to call it Castle Garden.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh, yeah. Well, that was the original, the place before Ellis Island where people were processed.

WEINER:

Is that what they called it?

LEVINE:

Yeah, uh-huh, in Battery Park.

WEINER:

Castle Garden. That's what it was. The old country, they said, "You're going to land in Castle Garden." Whatever it meant, we didn't know. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And so you, why were you here for a full week then? Why did you stay in Ellis Island?

WEINER:

Until we were through. There was hundreds of people that came in before us. I guess they were in no hurry to check us out.

LEVINE:

I see.

WEINER:

But I think they used to take so many a day.

LEVINE:

I see. So you didn't have any problem here.

WEINER:

No.

LEVINE:

But you were just, you stayed here because they didn't get to you yet.

WEINER:

We were detained for next, yeah, until they got to us.

LEVINE:

I see, I see.

WEINER:

Until they got to us.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. You mentioned on here that you were deloused. What was that like?

WEINER:

Oh, they used to give us baths, and then they'd look in our heads. ( he laughs ) See if we got any live ones running around there.

LEVINE:

And then what did they do if somebody did?

WEINER:

Send you back to the bath. Send you back to get cleaned up, yeah.

LEVINE:

Okay. Is there anything else about Ellis Island that you remember from being here?

WEINER:

Anything else? I was glad to get out of here, I'll tell you that. ( he laughs )

LEVINE:

And actually the baths were a first for you, too, right?

WEINER:

The what?

LEVINE:

The baths.

WEINER:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We used to take sometimes as many as two, three a day, hot steam showers where there were showers. The water was boiling hot. They'd scrub us, and they used to come in and check us out right into the shower.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. You mean you had to take it two or three times a day?

WEINER:

They sent us in, we had to go in.

LEVINE:

I see. Okay. Well, then, do you remember the reunion with your father?

WEINER:

Yes.

LEVINE:

What was that like?

WEINER:

I remember my father came to pick us up. My mother says to me, she used to call me Maishe, it was my Jewish name. Now it's Morris. "Maishe," she says, "this is your father." I said, "Hi, Pop." ( they laugh ) My sister didn't, she didn't know, he didn't know her.

LEVINE:

And was your father what you expected?

WEINER:

Yeah, yeah. He was very nice. He took us off. We were in New York a couple of days, then we boarded a train, we went to Boston.

LEVINE:

Okay. I think maybe this would be a good place to pause and we can change the tape just for a minute. END OF SIDE ONE BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO

LEVINE:

You were saying that when you met your father and you left Ellis Island then you came to New York. Do you remember what you thought when you first came to New York City?

WEINER:

Actually, we didn't see much of New York. We were only there like a day or so. Then we took a train and we went to Boston.

LEVINE:

Were there any things about the United States that you saw that struck you as . . .

WEINER:

Impressed. We never saw, well, we did see streetcars in Warsaw. Warsaw's a big city, very big. Warsaw we did, there were a lot of cars there, a lot of buses, yeah, and trains, restaurants, you know, even right after the war. Warsaw is a big city. And I understand it's more beautiful today than it was then.

LEVINE:

So when you took the train, then you got to Boston, and where did you go, then?

WEINER:

We came to Malden, Mass.

LEVINE:

Do you remember the address?

WEINER:

Oh, sure. We came to Malden. We got here. I remember it was Christmas morning. It was snowing. We got off at Suffolk Square and my father already had an apartment for us on Bryant Street, 364 Bryant Street, and he said to us, "Here's where we're going to live." Beautiful, five-room apartment for five people, five-room apartment. In the old country you'd put in fifteen people in there. Over here we all had our own bedroom. Then we started, I started school.

LEVINE:

And what was it like going to school? You were put into the sixth grade.

WEINER:

I was put in, well, I had an exam for about two weeks, what they call a special class. And in there they check you out and see where you're more suitable. A lot of the kids from my room, some were put into the second grade, third. It all depended on what you knew or how much you knew. I knew arithmetic very good. I knew math that they told me I could have gone into the eighth grade. That's how good my math was, see. So they put me into the sixth grade.

LEVINE:

And what was it like being in the sixth grade when you couldn't speak English?

WEINER:

It was, it was very difficult. But the teacher had a lot of patience with realizing that I didn't know how to speak English very good. I could say I picked it up, but in a year I was speaking pretty good.

LEVINE:

Uh-huh. Were there other children in your class too who couldn't speak English?

WEINER:

Yes, there was a couple of them, but they were there before me.

LEVINE:

I see. So within a year you were . . .

WEINER:

And, in fact, the teacher told me to help out a couple of students that were there. She couldn't communicate with them very good. If I could help her and explain to them some of the arithmetic, how to do it in this country. It's entirely different than the old country, see. And I used to have, I had two pupils that I was teaching them arithmetic. How to do the long division, multiplication and a few other things, addition, how to add, you know.

LEVINE:

Were you teaching them in English when you were explaining?

WEINER:

Well, I was talking to them either Polish or Jewish. If they understood Polish I'd rather speak Polish to them, and if they understood Jewish I would, if they didn't understand Polish I'd speak Jewish to them because I knew both languages very well. Polish, in fact, better than Jewish.

LEVINE:

So did your mother and father become citizens?

WEINER:

My mother became a citizen not, I became a citizen when I was eighteen. As soon as I reached eighteen years old I became a citizen. My mother became a citizen. She went to night school. She became, and my father became a citizen also. I only went to school up to the first year high school. The reason for that was I got a job in a chain store where I used to work after school on weekends. And after working there like three or four years, one day the supervisor says to me, he says, "Morris, how would you like to be manager of one of our stores?" I said, his name was also Mr. Weiner. It was exactly the same name as mine. It was M. Weiner Company, which in years became Elm Farm, big company. I went home and I told my father that. My father knew, "I wanted to go to school." I said, "But I got a chance, Pa, to be store manager with a little training." Well, I guess I overpowered him, because I really wanted some money, to earn some money, see. And I became manager of the store. I was only eighteen years old. Supervisor didn't know that I was eighteen years old. He thought I was over twenty years old. And before I took the job I said to him, his name was Hy, I says, "Hy," I says, "do you know how old I am?" He says, "No." I says, "Do you know I'm only eighteen years old." He says, "I'll take the responsibility for you." I said, "Leave me think about it another week or so." And I went home and I spoke to, talked it over with my father. He says, he says, "Well, you do what you want, but I want you to go to school." I says, "Well, maybe I'll go to night school, but in the meantime I'm going to take this job." Which I did, I took the job. I was eighteen years old. I was a store manager for them for four years. Then they went into the supermarket business, which was called Elm Farm. They expanded it. It went into big. And they were selling out all the small stores. And they approached me whether I want to buy the store that I was manager of, which I said no. I says, "If I'm going to buy a store, I'll get into business where I want to go myself." I didn't like the location of the place where I had the store. I opened up a store of my own. I went in business for myself. I was twenty-one years old. I saved up a thousand dollars, which was a lot of money in those days. And I went into business for myself and I was in business thirty-five years for myself. I got married. You want to know that?

LEVINE:

Yeah, just briefly, your wife's name.

WEINER:

My wife's name is Charlotte. I met her and I fell in love with her. A beautiful girl. Thank God she's still alive today. And we got married in 1936. We were married in 1936. By then my business was going pretty good. I was in business until 1965. In 1965, which I done very well, especially the last ten years, done very well, I brought up three sons.

LEVINE:

And what are their names?

WEINER:

My older son is Norman, which is with me today, God love him. Roger is here today, God love him. And we have a younger son in San Diego, Richard Weiner, which I love him, too. Two beautiful grandchildren in San Diego, three beautiful grandchildren in Boston, and I have a wonderful, wonderful family and a beautiful wife.

LEVINE:

Great. Now, just, before we end, I want to ask you, were there any kinds of ideas that your mother or father kind of tried to instill in you, ideas that they thought were important that you have remembered and you were told were important to live by. Can you think of anything that they tried to instill in you?

WEINER:

You mean in the old country?

LEVINE:

Yeah.

WEINER:

When we came here, you mean, to try? Like my mother used to say, look how nice it is in America. We didn't have all that food in the old country, all these rooms in the old country that we got here, and all the freedom that we got here, and everything else. Thank God that my father took us across and brought us here. If we would have been left in the old country we wouldn't be here today. We would have been gone already by now, and here I am with a beautiful, beautiful family, God love them.

LEVINE:

Great. Okay. Well, on that note, I thank you very much. It's been a pleasure talking with you.

WEINER:

Same here.

LEVINE:

This is Janet Levine for the National Park Service, and I'm here with Morris Weiner at Ellis Island.

WEINER:

I love you, Janet. You're a wonderful girl, and thank you for what you done for us.