Category Archives: USSR to New Jersey

1941, my father was the first member of his family do be issued his passport and travel documents to leave the USSR. He reached Honolulu the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This act added another barrier to the return of the rest of the family.

Home at Last

Posted on September 25, 2017 by kjw616

My family recently had our old 8mm home movies digitized, so I have been spending the weekend traveling down memory lane. Among the hours of films were many I had seen, some I had forgotten, and many I never knew … Continue reading →

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All the News That’s Fit to Find

Posted on April 13, 2017 by kjw616

This week I decided to change my subscription to newspapers.com so that I could increase my access to now just under 5000 newspapers spanning a time period from the 1700s until today. Since then, I have been having a grand … Continue reading →

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Windows 8 is Reminding Me of the Past

Posted on November 3, 2016 by kjw616

What would you do if you woke up one morning and learned that the country in which you were living was under attack? And what would you do if you were a member of that family—a son, a brother—but thousands … Continue reading →

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How Did He Do It?

Posted on June 22, 2016 by kjw616

This day in 1941, my father arrived in Honolulu—a weary twenty-two year old young man traveling alone to New Jersey from the Soviet Union. I think that writing this story as a mother of three adult children gives me more … Continue reading →

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That’s a Boatload of Silk!

Posted on June 21, 2016 by kjw616

On this day in 1941, Dad was still aboard the Kamakura Maru en route to Honolulu. His family had no choice but to remain in Novgorod. He was safe for now. I found a newspaper article, which stated that the ship … Continue reading →

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Jersey Bound- 75 Years Later

Posted on June 14, 2016 by kjw616

Dad boarded a Japanese passenger ship on this day in 1941— June 14—on the second leg of his journey back to New Jersey after having spent the past ten years living in the USSR with his parents and five siblings. He and … Continue reading →

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Alone Among a Sea of People

Posted on June 13, 2016 by kjw616

On this day seventy-five years ago, Dad was in Yokohama, Japan. Much of the world was at war now, and on this day, he was a twenty-two year old young man on his way back to New Jersey without his … Continue reading →

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Would Someone Provide the Money?

Posted on March 27, 2014 by kjw616

It has been over a month since I last wrote of the predicament my aunts found themselves in as American refugees who ended up in the temporary capital of the Soviet Union—Kuibyshev—after they were pushed from their home in Novgorod. … Continue reading →

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The Woman in the Photo

Posted on November 6, 2013 by kjw616

Genealogy research takes a lot of persistence and patience. We would all like to hope that our ancestors’ stories can be easily pieced together by filling in a few names and dates at ancestry.com.  Sometimes, particularly with an unusual name, … Continue reading →

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Never Give Up on the Research Hunt

Posted on October 30, 2013 by kjw616

How have I been able to learn so much about my father’s story growing up in the Soviet Union in the 1930’s and 1940’s, particularly since there is not a lot of information out there on the internet regarding that … Continue reading →

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