Oral History 02.07.31ALR with Ausma Levalds Rowberry
Museum researchers conduct recorded interviews with immigrants, refugees, settlement workers and others who have lived experiences relating to immigration. As a learning institution, these accounts help us understand how individuals recollect, interpret, or construct meaning from events and experiences that are within living or family memory. Excerpts of these audio and video interviews, such as those accessible here, are used by the museum in various ways. Please consult the Reproductions and Use information page for details on how to request the original, unmodified recording.
Ausma describes her February 1949 journey on board SS Samaria.
So from the train trip, my sister is still convinced that we did not board the Samaria that day, that we spent the night somewhere in Cuxhaven. Then, I think it was February the 10th, or something like that, that we did depart. And the journey was—we arrived in Halifax on the 23rd of February. And it was a miserable, miserable journey. Storm after storm after storm. Everybody, just everybody, violently ill. And icebergs – and the crew indicating that we were about to sink—any time kind of thing.
Interviewer: Did they actually say the ship was close or were they—
ALR: Well I'm not sure whether I would have understood if they had said it, but certainly by sign language and whatnot, because I was absolutely – petrified in seeing this one gentleman, because he was always indicating it was going. Well, the ship had been outfitted, I think, as a military one too, so when the War Brides talk about their cabins and whatnot, I kind of had to chuckle a little bit. No, we didn't come quite in that style. But it didn't matter.
Ausma Levalds-Rowberry was born in Priekule, Latvia in 1940, and her early years were dominated by the German and Soviet armies rolling back and forth across her home during the Second World War. When the fighting passed back over the Levalds farm in the fall of 1944, the family had little left and chose to flee the country via the port of Liepāja, ending up in Danzig and then Germany itself. After the war, the Levalds family were among the millions of Displaced Persons across Europe. By the late 1940s, some of Ausma's relatives had gotten approval to come to Canada under the auspices of the International Refugee Organization. After they had worked in the country for a time, the rest of the family got similar approval. Ausma sailed from Cuxhaven to Halifax on board the Samaria, arriving at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia in late February of 1949. Ausma was officially the 50,000th Displaced Person to be admitted to Canada, and was the subject of a media-intensive ceremony upon disembarking. She received a number of gifts—a doll, a locket, a Bible and other books—from the mayor and various immigration officials at the time.
Audio oral history conducted by Steven Schwinghamer on 31 July 2002 at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The interview is not restricted; contact Museum staff for access to the full interview.
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