The Unwritten Diary of Israel Unger: Revised Edition

PART THREE: CANADIAN THROUGH AND THROUGH

57 Part Three Canadian Through and Through An Airplane, a Stevedore, and His Plymouth: Arriving at Pier 21 I was so excited to spot land. As we approached Halifax the boat slowed down, the waves got smaller. We were arriving at the now famous Pier 21— the Ellis Island of Canada. One of the first things Canadian that I saw was a Canadian airplane that flew over the ship, circled it, and headed back to land. It was not a commercial aircraft, so we assumed it was an air force plane checking us out. We figured they had to go and have a look at any ship coming in. When we landed there were some workers on the dock. I shouted down from the boat to them. One longshoreman talked to me. There were several cars nearby and I learned that one of those cars belonged to a longshoreman. It was a black Plymouth and this stevedore said it was his. New cars were rare in Europe at the time so I thought: What a country where stevedores own cars! The airplane, the stevedore with his Plymouth … I didn’t notice anything else. The only thing that mattered was getting ashore and being in Canada. We arrived about midday on a Friday. The immigration process at Pier 21 in Halifax must have gone fast, as I would remember something special about it if it had taken a long time or if there were problems. It was a simple and swift process. My parents had zero English and their French would have been very weak. I had forgotten my English but not totally, so Charlie and I translated for our parents. I have never really tried to learn languages. I speak Yiddish. I have a little German, though if I tried to communicate in German people would probably recognize that most of my German is Yiddish. My Polish is meager. I had no interest in maintaining it. I can get by in Hebrew. I speak French and English, but that was not always so. When I returned to France from London as a child I could speak English but not French. Then I learned French and lost 58 canadian through and through my English. When I arrived in Canada I had to relearn English. As an adult I made an effort to relearn French. So there we stood, translating for our parents and filling out the immigration forms. For this book project, I requested a copy of my arrival document from Pier 21. It says I was born in Poland and that we sailed from Le Havre, France, on the Goya, 8 February 1951. We landed in Halifax on 16 February 1951. It states that I was twelve, my brother sixteen, father forty-four, and mother forty-three. Actually they were forty-nine and forty-eight, so I can only speculate that they lied about their ages in order to increase their chances of being accepted as immigrants. This might have happened already when filling out forms in France. The document also says that our destination was to a “Father Cousin” Mr. Leon Margulies, 1117 St. Catherine Street, Montreal. He was actually my mother’s cousin, so maybe there was a hitch in the translation. The Ungers’ immigration document, saying they sailed with the Goya in 1951. (Israel Unger collection) 59 canadian through and through It was Friday afternoon when we finished with the immigration process. Our destination was Montreal, but we had to stop in Halifax because it was Shabbat and my parents would not travel on Shabbat. Members of the Jewish community in Halifax helped us find a hotel to stay in overnight. It was not far from the railroad station. The hotel was not plush—not the Lord Nelson. It was a small thing, one room, but for us it was excellent. It may have been on Quinpool Road, because the first time I went back to Halifax that street was the only one that was familiar to me. Near the hotel I saw something I had never seen before—parking meters. I’m not sure that I knew what they were, but they were part of this huge adventure. A Plymouth and a parking meter are two images from the time of my arrival. In the late forties and very early fifties cars in the United States and Canada underwent a huge styling change...