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Immigrants Speak
From Odessa to Anamoose
“Five successive weeks [and]... five different countries; Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, England... and perhaps 5000 towns and villages,... and crossed perhaps 1000 rivers and small streams... And crossed the Baltic, North Sea, Kiel Canal, Atlantic Ocean, and many thousands of miles of railroad travel in Europe and the USA.”
Charles Losk, journal, 1947. Losk, his two brothers, a sister, and their families left Odessa in 1905, bound for Anamoose, North Dakota, and a new life as farmers. Courtesy of the American Jewish Archives.
“We had taken shelter in the attic of the house we lived in because a pogrom was raging in our town, and we were hiding from the mob... My father at that time was in the cheese business... and had his long cheese knife. He decided that before he and his family were killed he would kill as many of the attackers as he possibly could. It was up in that attic, surrounded by his terrified family, that my father vowed that he would leave this accursed Russia and make a new life for himself and his family in America.”
Sophie Turnoy Trupin, Dakota Diaspora, 1984. Harry Turnoy, Sophie’s father, immigrated to North Dakota, in 1904 to establish a safe haven for his family.
top photo: A home vandalized in the Kishinev pogrom, 1903. Courtesy of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York.
inset photo: Prayer book printed in Warsaw, 1878. Its owner used it every day of her life. Courtesy of Sally Greenberg, Minneapolis, MN.
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