A grandmother’s pink cabbage, known as surkål, cooked with caraway seeds and a touch of vinegar, was the jewel of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Jean Marshall

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Jean Marshall

A grandmother’s pink cabbage, known as surkål, cooked with caraway seeds and a touch of vinegar, was the jewel of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Jean Marshall

We interviewed 8 refugees from totally different corners of the globe and requested: What’s one valuable belonging you introduced alongside in your journey to remind you of dwelling? The solutions ranged from a set of incense stones made by a Yemeni grandmother (and now emitting their particular aroma in Ecuador) to Ukrainian sheet music.

We additionally requested our viewers: Inform us about an object out of your private or household historical past that has particular that means as a memento of the previous in a special nation or a mirrored image of your identification.

Because of all who shared their tales. Here is a sampling of responses, edited for size and readability.

A crystal decanter with a chip jogs my memory of a daring 1911 journey

My valuable object is that this more-than-a-century-old decanter.

In 1911, when my then 14-year-old grandfather Jan Roušar (modified to John Roushar on Ellis Island) and his household left Oldriš in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) to come back to the US, they introduced alongside this household heirloom. It’s heavy reduce crystal and will need to have had necessary that means to hold that far.

A decanter with a chip in it’s a reminder of the willingness to tackle daring challenges, reminiscent of a grandfather’s Atlantic crossing as a boy.

Monica Elenbaas

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Monica Elenbaas

A decanter with a chip in it’s a reminder of the willingness to tackle daring challenges, reminiscent of a grandfather’s Atlantic crossing as a boy.

Monica Elenbaas

I by no means noticed this decanter in my childhood — it had a chip within the lip and was thought of unusable. When my mother and Aunt Dorothy helped empty my grandparents’ home within the Seventies, it moved to my mother’s home and received tucked behind a china cupboard.

I got here throughout it just a few years in the past whereas serving to my dad and mom within the cleanup after a fireplace. My mother requested me if I wished it, “although it is damaged.” I discovered it stunning and determined that if and when my husband and I set sail, it might include us on the seas, simply because it had when my pricey late grandfather was a boy making his Atlantic crossing.

It has traveled since 2016 with my husband and me on a 40-foot catamaran known as “Grateful,” which has journeyed to the waters of 5 continents.

I believe Grandpa would approve. He is certainly one of my angels above. I consider the bravery it took for his dad and mom to see the writing on the wall and determine to depart behind their thriving mill enterprise as a result of they may see WWI coming and had no want for his or her sons to be pressed into the Kaiser’s military.

By comparability, crossing seas is pleasure for my husband Jamie and me. At any time when I have a look at the decanter I’m reminded that willingness to tackle daring challenges runs within the household.

— Monica Fox Elenbaas

A Norwegian grandmother’s cabbage dish was a solution to say ‘I really like you’

In 1906 my grandmother, Oline Steffensen, traveled from Norway to the US. She was 25 years previous. She had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and wished to go to Utah so she might go to the temple there and “be sealed,” because the Mormons say, to her mom, who had died when she was a little or no lady. The will to hook up with her relations for eternity gave her the braveness to make the journey.

Crimson knitted caps had been a grandmother’s method of claiming, “I really like you.”

Jean Marshall

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Jean Marshall

Crimson knitted caps had been a grandmother’s method of claiming, “I really like you.”

Jean Marshall

In Salt Lake Metropolis she married Rudolph Stockseth, a fellow Norwegian, who was a printer. They’d 9 youngsters. My father was the oldest. They by no means had sufficient cash, however they’d a substantial amount of love of their household. I bear in mind properly the camaraderie of my aunts and uncles at household gatherings.

What Oline introduced from Norway was her capacity to like … and to knit … and to cook dinner.

I bear in mind consuming Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners in her small brick dwelling and savoring the aroma and tangy style of pink cabbage cooked with caraway seeds and a touch of vinegar, known as “surkål .” It was the jewel of the meal to me.

My grandmother’s brusque, accented English made me assume she was grumpy. I now notice that the meals she made – and the pink caps she knit for us – had been her method of claiming, “I really like you.”

— Jean Marshall

I nonetheless have the footwear I wore when my household fled the Nazis

I’m 84 years previous, thought of to be a survivor of the Holocaust. However I consider myself as a “refugee” fortunate to have escaped the Holocaust.

I used to be not fairly 2 years previous when my household (mother, dad and older sister) boarded what I used to be later instructed was to be the final practice out of Paris earlier than the French authorities was to give up. I am instructed it was the primary week of June 1938, however do not know the precise date.

We had been heading towards Bordeaux after which on to Spain, armed with all of the requisite journey permits, American visas and a small suitcase filled with some clothes in addition to my mom’s journey stitching equipment, contained in a repurposed pink metallic tobacco tin.

A pair of footwear and a mom’s stitching equipment saved from fleeing the Nazis brings to thoughts the resiliency and braveness that refugees exhibit of their quest for safety.

Mireille Taub

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Mireille Taub

A pair of footwear and a mom’s stitching equipment saved from fleeing the Nazis brings to thoughts the resiliency and braveness that refugees exhibit of their quest for safety.

Mireille Taub

It was a harrowing journey. The practice, filled with refugees, was bombed – making battle on civilians was a typical Nazi tactic. We had been fortunate sufficient to outlive and proceeded to stroll to Bordeaux — which had been declared a closed metropolis due to its strategic location, in addition to the French authorities sequestered in Bordeaux had not but determined how finest to give up.

We will need to have walked for miles. I wore my patent leather-based footwear, my dad and mom carried that small suitcase. Ultimately we met by probability the American consulate officer in a small metropolis outdoors Bordeaux. My father and the officer had been capable of hire a truck to drive us to the Mediterranean coast. Ultimately we had been capable of cross into Spain and Portugal, the place we boarded a Greek freighter that set sail for New York. We arrived on August 11, 1940.

My patent leather-based footwear, not shiny and glowing, remained on my ft till I outgrew them. I nonetheless have them, together with my mom’s makeshift stitching equipment. I take advantage of this stuff them as props for my volunteer work on the Nassau County Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Heart, the place I inform guests the explanations my household had been compelled to hunt refuge in addition to discussing the necessity for protected havens 82 years later.

I treasure my footwear and mom’s stitching equipment as a result of it underlines the resiliency, dedication and braveness that refugees exhibit of their quest for safety — and as a reminder as properly that for thus many, the sheer presence of luck can chart your future.

— Mireille Taub

Why I’ll by no means depart my flute behind

My most valuable object is my flute!

A flute saved from a fireplace represents a religious connection to music.

Penny Rogers

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Penny Rogers

A flute saved from a fireplace represents a religious connection to music.

Penny Rogers

I began enjoying within the faculty band once I was within the seventh grade, slightly over 50 years in the past, and as soon as I started enjoying, there was by no means any query about what I might do for a profession. Taking part in music meets my religious wants like nothing else – and is mentally difficult, which I really like.

I majored in music in school. My first job was as a music instructor. When the residence constructing the place I used to be dwelling caught fireplace in the course of the night time, I ran outdoors. A fireman requested me to maneuver my automobile so the hearth truck might get nearer to the constructing. He went again into my residence with me so I might get my automobile keys: “Simply your automobile keys, ma’am. Nothing else!”

After we left, I had my keys … and my flute. I might have fought him if he had instructed me to depart it behind!

If I ever need to “bug out” for any cause, you possibly can imagine my flute might be the very first thing I seize to take alongside!

— Penny Rogers