Page 120 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Escape to New York
I remember entering one of those shops to buy a cigar—it was the
first time in my life to do a thing like that—and a girl clerk there was
so good-looking that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I thought she
was Jewish, because of her features and dark hair. It made no sense
to me; the Hollanders are of light complexion. Later, when I studied
the history of Holland, I learned that Spain ruled it for a hundred
years. Then I realized that the girl must have been of Spanish
descent.
She had the same stature as my wife Fannie, and was very similar
in looks, but painted her face and colored her lips. Women in the old
country never thought of doing such a thing, and Fannie didn’t,
either. In Europe at that time, a woman with a painted face was
called a street woman, or, as it is said in English, a streetwalker. Only
after the First World War women began to smoke, cut their hair
short, shorten their skirts, and wear slacks. Painting the face became
prevalent, even school children did it. If anyone thinks that all these
changes did not have a harmful effect on family life, he should
compare statistics about divorce, murder, and crimes of school
children who became wayward on account of broken families, and he
will find that all those frivolous attainments had a great effect on
human relations.
I enjoyed one week in that country like a rich tourist, without
paying a cent, being my own guide. As I had paid the shipping
company for passage, they had to support me until the ship was ready
to leave. They kept a boarding house where they fed and lodged their
passengers, a Jewish boarding house serving kosher fish and plenty of
white bread. Emigration to America was then at its peak, and other
emigrants were lodged at the same place by other agents. Amongst
this group of young people, mostly from Poland and Lithuania, were
many lively boys who gathered together to sing Russian melodies and
workers’ revolutionary songs. Although I was not gregarious, when I
watched them I felt as if I were back at home, and didn’t think about
the unknown land and future that awaited me.
This pleasant time did not last long. Soon a boat was leaving for
Hull, and there we were in the bottom of it. It was a freighter
carrying clams and onions to England loaded on the open deck. In
the bottom were bunks three tiers high made out of pipe with a thin

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