Fleischer, Henny Karin Kaethe Eugen

My family and I arrived in Canada on the Neptunia at Pier 21 on March 14 1956.

Being born in East Germany in 1928, the early part of my life up to the late teens was spent there under the communist regime. Immediately after the war was over while Germany was in such desperate shape in 1945 that my mother despaired of ever being able to find food to put on the table for her family, my father, an electrical engineer, attempting to ensure a future for his two youngest children, was able to enroll my twin brother in a university preparatory school which led him to an engineering career and the eventual position of engineering director of the largest gear plant in Europe. Although now retired, he still occasionally lectures at universities both in Germany and in other countries. I was enrolled in the first post-war course of the long defunct but renowned and now to be revived Watchmakers School in Glasshutte near Dresden. On graduation, 3 years later, I obtained, by correspondence smuggled to West Germany, a position as watch repairer in a jewelry establishment in Landau in the Pfaltz not far from the French border. But how was I to get across the forbidden and somewhat dangerous border and then across the whole of Germany?

Taking the bull by the horns, at age 20 with a pack on my back containing two loaves of bread and my prized clockwork and watch models made in school, I did manage it across the border crawling along ditches under search lights with barking watch dogs in the distance, to Hanover in the west.

There, thinking myself safe while openly strolling along the streets enjoying my first experience in a western city, I was accosted by a British service policeman. He, finding me with only East German identity papers, decided to take me to his commanding officer who, apparently following a policy then current at that time in the power circles of the Allies of attempting to maintain as cozy relations as possible with Russia, decided to have me returned to East Germany and had me detained in a locked hotel room over night. After forcefully and successfully warding off the amorous attentions of the concierge, and climbing out of the window and down a drain pipe, I left Hanover in the back of a truck laden with raw rubber, westward bound on the first leg of my journey across Germany to Landau. On arrival there I received a royal welcome from the lady of the place where I was to work, who then promptly put me in the bath.

After working there for almost 5 years during which time I was married and our first daughter was born, I was forced to leave my job. As our financial situation had become rather precarious, particularly as I was again pregnant, I suggested to my husband that we attempt to emigrate to the U.S. or Canada. To this end we visited the Canadian consulate, our first choice, where the first question asked was "What was the date of your last period". After being advised that I was pregnant, the gentleman advised us to come back to talk with them later with our TWO children. This, in due time we did and were overjoyed to be accepted for immigration to Canada.

We landed in Halifax after a very stormy ocean passage and disembarked from the Neptunia at Pier 21. We then took a train to Montreal where we arrived with no command of English or French with 2 small daughters, $100.00 in my husband's pocket and, of course, no job.

With help from the Canadian government and a Canadian Lutheran organization we were placed in a hotel. Within a matter of weeks my husband obtained suitable work and we found and furnished a modest apartment.

We never look back.

During my 50 wonderful years in this country I have been, fortunately, able to practice my watch making vocation to some extent. I now have 3 daughters, 6 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. I am extremely proud that these 11 citizens as well as my first husband and myself are part of the population of Canada.

For the last 33 of those years I have been happily married to a Canadian born husband.

Kaethe Looman-Irvine