My arrival was July 9, 1959. The day of departure was February 12, 1957. My father a’h got involved helping people to escape. Yaakov Miller’s family and Michoel Schnitzler’s family went through him. Being at the border of Austria, he thought that he can leave anytime. In the beginning when someone was caught escaping, would be sent back and they were able to try again. At the turn of 1957, the laws became strict with jail time. In February when my father wanted to take a big family, was told that it is too dangerous I rather take you. My father comes home at night and said, pack up we are leaving, We took one suitcase and got on the last wagon of the train to be able to get out in the back without being noticed and be able to hide in the bushes. After walking a while 2 Hungarian soldiers took over. At the border, search lights required us to crawl in order not be seen. The soldiers left and we were pointed to a direction and we walked in plow field which separated Hungary and Austria called nomans land. Everything was scary, a dog barking a tree whistling from the wind. After a while we arrived to an Austrian custom house. We stayed over in a motel and luckily we encountered a bus driver who took us to Vienna. The Joint placed us in a hotel called The Continental Hotel for refugees where we were for 3 months. From there we were relocated to a displacement camp in Upper Austria called Asten close to Linz. We stayed in wooden barracks. We had a cheder, secular schooling and an Ashkenaz and Sefard (chasiddish) minyonim. After 2 years the Hias flew us to New York. We lived in Crown Heights until my marriage in 1972. I took a bus to Williamsburg to the Wiener yeshiva. In 1963 I left it and went to Chasan Sofer on the East Side which moved to Boro Park.
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