Chapter 5: Coming to America

My father was convinced that the Russians would invade Western Europe. In order to put an ocean between them and himself, he and my mother decided that they had to emigrate to the United States.

First, he discovered that the American quota for Hungarian immigrants had been filled. Next, he corresponded with the Fellners, who by now were in California and had bought agricultural property near Sacramento. From this, an idea—and I don’t know whose it was—emerged. My father would become a farmer, and we would emigrate on the farmer’s visa, with the Fellners sponsoring us. As 1950 began, we started the application process.

As a consequence, my father had to appear before the American agricultural attaché in The Hague, because the American embassy required proof that he was a farmer. Since any documentation of this status was nonexistent, he was invited instead to come and pass a farming test.

Of course, he knew nothing about farming. I acted as his coach, reading a book about agriculture and getting him prepared.

He boarded a train to The Hague and took the test. After the test, the attaché told him, “Mr. de Heinrich, you passed the test with flying colors. But I’m looking at your hands, and I don’t believe that you’ve ever held a hoe in your life.”

But congratulations, you are a farmer!

In the meantime, the conflict in Korea had broken out. A lot of Eastern Europeans thought the way my father did and were convinced: “This is it.” My father was in a total panic, wondering how he would get us to the States before the Russians arrived.

A man named Béla Dreher was living with his sons, Béla and Jenö, in Belgium at the time. The Drehers, were a big brewing family in Hungary and friends of ours.

My father and the sons put their heads together and decided to buy open tickets to Rabat, Morocco, where Dreher senior owned a rice plantation. Every day my father went down to the Sabena office in downtown Brussels and changed the tickets to the following day.

And then, all of a sudden, our visas arrived on August 15.

Remember Aunt Lucy? Lucy Fellner, who was usually in Monte Carlo, heard that we wanted to get to the States. She went every year to visit her brothers there, as she had to spend some time in the U.S.—which she hated, as it took her away from her beloved casino—to maintain her American citizenship. She had contacts everywhere, and she made arrangements for us to travel to the U.S. on the French Line.

We had our visas. We had passage on the French Line’s ship Ile de France. And our belongings were already packed, just in case the Russians invaded and we had to go to Rabat.

We took the train to Paris and checked into our hotel, the St. James Albany on the Rue de Rivoli. When we arrived, we got the news that the Ile de France had run aground near Le Havre. The voyage was canceled.

My father finally gets everything lined up, and now the ship runs aground? Are you joking?

Here we were, stranded in Paris. The call went out again to Lucy néni, who castigated the French Line: “How can you do this to my friends?”

In response, the French Line really went out of their way to help. They gave us cabin-class tickets on the Liberté, a German ship that as war compensation had been given to the French. This would be its maiden voyage under the French flag and as the flagship of the line.

In addition, the French Line picked up our hotel bill. We were living on the French Line’s tab in Paris, and of course we enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a very pleasant stay after the initial shock. My father’s mood improved with each day that embarkment came closer. Finally, he was going to get some water between himself and the Russians.

The concept of a sea voyage was all new to us. We finally took the train to Le Havre and boarded the Liberté.

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