Oral History Interview with Ethel Reisberg Schectman, March 24, 2001 Page: 1
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INTERVIEW
of
Mrs. Ethel Reisberg Schectman
On the Home Front
Mr. Cox: Today is March 24, 2001. My name is Floyd Cox. I am a volunteer at the National Museum
of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. As part of our Oral History Program we are interviewing
Mrs. Ethel Reisberg Schectman. Thank you very much for taking the time to do an oral history with us,
Ethel. We certainly appreciate it. If I might I would like to start out by asking you a few questions
regarding your background. Where you were born; when you born; your mother and father, where they
were born and your education and we will just take it from there.
Mrs. Schectman: My parents were both born in Poland. My father served in the Polish Army in the First
World War. After the War, the part of Poland that he lived in was given to Russia and a year later he was
drafted into the Russian Army. My father, not wanting to go into the Russian Army, married my mother
in Poland and he emigrated to the United States in 1924.
Two years earlier in 1922, they passed the McCarren Act which severely restricted emigration
from that part of the world. My mother did not have a Visa to come to the United States and they were
separated for seven years until my father could become a citizen. It took seven years at that time. So in
1931, he became a citizen and my mother came to the United States. I was born on February 19, 1932
and my brother was born October 25, 1933. Because we were in the heart of the depression, that was the
extent of our family.
Mr. Cox: Where were you born, Ethel?
Mrs. Schectman: I was born in New York City. My father had some relatives there that he was able to
stay with when he first came. He saved up some money so that he could afford to have a home for my
mother by the time she came. It was kind of a sacrifice, but it was very well worth-while now that we
look back because my father was the youngest of eight children. My mother was the youngest of six
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Cox, Floyd & Schectman, Ethel Reisberg. Oral History Interview with Ethel Reisberg Schectman, March 24, 2001, text, March 24, 2001; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth193887/m1/2/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.