The Immigrant Experience

Helene’s nephew (and thus, Harry and Eva’s first cousin), Paul Zerzawy, was sponsored by the son of one of his mother’s cousins, Arthur Schiller, a law professor at Columbia University. Paul had had a law practice in Vienna and perhaps Prague. He arrived in the US a few months before Eva and Harry, at the age of 44. He met Eva and Harry when they arrived by ship and after a few days visit in New York, he put them on the train for San Francisco. After several unsuccessful months looking for work in New York City, Paul followed his young cousins to San Francisco where there were more relatives, a more hospitable climate, and hopefully more opportunity.

From a letter dated March 21, 1940 written to a relative in Haifa:
“Otherwise, we will have to comfort ourselves that as we know from experience, all immigrants spend many months and sometimes years to manage to get a decent income no matter where fate has sent them. For myself, I do not want to complain much because San Francisco is a splendid city with a magical climate; tranquilly living well-mannered kind of people live here who even show some interest in art and music and have no hatred of Jews, unlike in New York. But a regular job is something one cannot find and so I have taken on the career of a piano teacher and accompanist. I earn a little more than my furnished room costs me, which I felt prompted to do because I think I was bothering the older Schiller married couple. ….With the help of the many invitations, I can pretty much make it financially and I hope I do not have to make any more use of the bank account … which is not even enough to buy anything with. But if I’m lucky, the number of my students will increase. I have plenty of company and through the help of all my relatives and my own promotional activities, since the 1st of February - the day on which I started my new activity - I have gained five students. But you see, although I am speaking relatively of luck, it has taken nine months to do this, to get to earn my first dollars. And many others are doing just the same. So don’t give up; it will happen.”