Traveling to Canada

Mom's Memoirs:

I guess by now I am back at the point when I finally embarked on the “Ascania” in Liverpool for Montreal. I don’t remember much of the passage, except that it was an exceedingly rough one; very high seas, gale strength winds, and few passengers to be seen about, most were seasick. Now contrary to my mother, who literally could get seasick looking at high waves in the movies or on TV, I have never been seasick, despite many a rough Channel passage. So I kept enjoying my meals at a big almost empty table. I don’t remember the entertainment, I think there was horse-racing, a game that seems to have gone into oblivion. The end of the voyage was the near endless track up the St. Lawrence River.

In Montreal I was met by an acquaintance of the Grossus, who had also arranged for my accommodation, very unimaginatively and extremely costly at the Mount Royal Hotel. Luckily I also had the name of Sidney Ivry, can’t remember right now whether that was also through the Grossus, but he very soon rescued me from the hotel. Sid was married to a young woman who had been released from a concentration camp and was wearing her number tatooed on her arm. They made a strange couple: he was much older than Lisl and about a head shorter, but he was kindness personified, just what Lisl needed at the time; how this marriage would work out in the long run was a bit dubious to me, but I completely lost touch with them and have no idea how their story developed. They bedded me down on their down sofa (no pun intended) and after a day or two we found a very nice furnished room for me. I came to Canada as a “landed immigrant” and was quite prepared to have to stay there for a while and even started looking for a job.

Research Notes:

The images above are from two menus Mom saved (dinner, Friday, August 11, and farewell dinner, Wednesday August 16, with autographs). For a long article about the Ascania and photos, click here (it had returned to services with a full recondition in April 1950).

The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, there were 690 passengers on this voyage, which arrived in Montreal on August 19, 1950. In addition, in an article showing what cabins were like, it says that the Ascania was "the most common immigration ship at Pier 21 with over 220 voyages on record." Mom does not say where she boarded, but the itinerary was (in reverse) "Montreal, Quebec, Halifax-Greenock, Cobh, Liverpool, London, Havre, Southampton, Cuxhaven."

According to an article, "Part 1: The Royal Family of the Seas", in the August 1, 1950, issue of the Canadian magazine Macleans, "This year, minus the 36-year-old Aquitania which was scrapped after the last tourist season, but strengthened by two additional chartered ships, Cunard will fill up 15 liners in the biggest tourist year in history. Some passengers will cross between Liverpool and Montreal in Ascania for as little as $140."

As for the Ivry's, someone Mom lost touch with, I found the full story of Lisl (Liselotte) in a book "Passover : Festival of Freedom" by Monique Polak, which Google Books has online. In addition, there is an article about her in the Montreal Gazette and an oral history at the Holocaust Museum. Most immediately, she writes: