Dorothy Anker Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Dorothy Anker
Q. He would also be safer out of London if war came,
A. Ja. That was before the war. 1 mean we did that in spring, after
Easter in 1939. And these ladies were wonderful to him.
Q. How did you meet these ladies or how did this opportunity come
about?
A. Hans had first a beautiful chance to get a job In England,
Q. He was fortunate.
A. JR. But the English did not permit him to work there. Our biggest
customer was Cross and Blackwell. And through these Cross and Rlackwell
people, he could have had a chance to work in, I don't know, the
surrounding of England. I mean he was a big, he was one of the biggest
pea growers in England. And he wanted to have Hans there for the time
we stayed in England and employ him. He even would have had a cottage
for us to live there and we . . .
Q. And Hans would supervise or manage thls,
A. Ja, and manage this way and show him how to conserve the peas like
we had done in Germany. And he could show him that and he would have
only done it for the the being that, we stayed in England.
Q. This farm, if that's what it could be called, that raised peas was a
supplier of Cross and Rlackwell or did rhey own it? Was it their ~wri
operation?
A. No, no, no.
Q. It just supplied them.
A. But the English home office did not grant us the permission to work
there and stay there because we came to England under the auspices that
we would not work in England and that we would only live there until our
immigration papers to the United States were settled and we could leave
for the United States. So this dream was out.
Q. There was a good deal of unmployment in @rigland at that time I
think. I went through the same thing when I applied . . .
END OF SIDE ONE
Q. I applied for a student visa in 1937 and had to swear by all that
was holy that I wouldn't even seek emplayment in the United Kingdom. So
I know what you went through. So Hans was not able to work though you
intimated, I think, that this would have been creating more employment
for other people. Because Hans was trained ta do this kind of thing, to
raise and dry peas and get them ready for the marker.
Dorothy Anker Memoir -- Archives, University of Illinois at Springfield