By Steve Sipos – Thunder Bay, Ont.
Amid copious tears from relatives and friends, my mother, older brother, Joe, and I, boarded the coach at the railroad station in Velky Berezny, Czechoslovakia in November 1937. While the train was in motion, we were allowed to walk or even to run up and down the aisles.
Sometime the next day we arrived at the German border. Here, armed German soldiers got on the train. Two soldiers, one at each end, were on our coach. No longer could we walk or run up and down the aisles. We had to stay put! No one laughed as they did in Czechoslovakia. There was no gaiety. Everybody was somber.
After a relatively short trip – which seemed much longer to me and Joe due our ‘confinement’ – we arrived at the French border. As we were preparing to board another train, a gendarme picked me up, put me onto his shoulder and gave me a chocolate. What a difference! Once again I heard laughter and even music.
After we boarded the train there were no armed soldiers on board. Again we could move around the coach whenever we wanted.
Sometime the next day we arrived in Le Havre where we got off the train. I don’t remember how we got from the train to the ship. All of a sudden there we were, going up a steep walkway onto the ship.
Table had no end
We were taken to a stateroom which had a circular window and mom prepared places for us to sleep. After we settled in on the ship, we climbed up some stairs and went into what looked like a huge room. It had a table that, according to my young eyes, appeared to have no end. Here we were supposed to eat our meals.
Sometime after her first meal aboard ship, mom excused herself as she wasn’t feeling well and went to our room. Joe and I toured the floor where our dining room was. Pretty soon, he said he wasn’t well, so he too went back to our room.
There I was, five years and four months old, not knowing why my mother and brother were sick. Away I went exploring! When the time arrived for supper, I went to our room and found mom and Joe throwing up. I couldn’t understand why.
Someone from the next room took me upstairs to the dining room, where we had one ‘dish’ that I’ll never forget. On the table was a monstrous bowl filled with some red stuff I had never seen before. Someone put some of that red stuff into small bowls and put the bowls in front of us.
I sat there mesmerized as I watched that red material in my bowl shiver, shake and jiggle. What was I supposed to do with it? I looked around and saw people putting the red stuff into their mouths, so I put some into my spoon.
Strange material shook violently
As I was raising the spoon to my mouth, either the ship’s engines kicked into high gear or we got hit by a huge wave. I stared at that material shaking violently on my spoon and put it back into the bowl.
A kindly lady beside me saw my plight, took my hand and spoon in her hand, filled the spoon with the shaking red material, and put the spoon up to my mouth.
I tightened my lips but the lady opened them with the spoon and into my mouth it went. Hey, it was sweet and had a good taste! I loved it. I dug right in, and quick as a wink, emptied my bowl. That was my first experience with strawberry Jell-O.
I remember one day, the ship’s horn was blaring and the stewards were clearing the staterooms and ordering them to the upper deck where we were shown how to use a lifesaver and what procedures we had to follow.
The ocean on that day must have been awfully rough that day. It seemed to me no matter in which direction I walked, the floor slanted up or down.
I must have been an awfully cute blond-haired little lad as wherever I went on our deck, people gave me coins. Every day that I came back to our room, I emptied my little pockets and gave these assorted coins to mother.
The trip aboard the ship, as far as I was concerned, was a fun time except when mother kept us in our stateroom to keep an eye on us.
