In this video, Stefan Carter describes the challenges that he and his relatives faced in their efforts to immigrate to North America from a Munich DP camp. The relatives of a Canadian nurse sponsored Stefan to live with them, and he arrived in Winnipeg in 1948. Source: Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, 1988
[00:00-00:06]
Video begins with inter-title in white text on black screen while instrumental music plays and fades into the next frame: In 1946, Stefan Carter joined his aunt, uncle, and cousin at a Displaced Persons Camp in Munich, Germany.
[00:07-00:10]
Cut to Holocaust survivor Stefan Carter, sitting in front of a dark background and looks to the right of the camera. The camera shows his face and shoulders as he speaks during an interview conducted in Winnipeg in 1988.
>> Stefan Carter: Well I stayed in Munich for about two years until 1948.
[00:11-00:14]
[Music off] The name “Stefan Carter” and the location of the filmed interview, “Winnipeg”, display in white text above Stefan's left shoulder.
>> Interviewer Nada Rubin: And were your aunt and uncle there all the time you were there?
[00:15-00:56]
>> Stefan Carter: No, they were to start with. As time went on, and contacts were made with their relatives in New York, immigration papers were arranged and complex and time-consuming immigration procedures took place. But while they and their son – who acted as physician in the camp, or in various camps – could join their relatives by the immigration quotas that existed in the United States, I could not, because again I was not close enough relative. So they were very concerned about me.
[Instrumental music]
>> But because of a contact…
[00:57-01:05]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of Stefan Carter and his cousin, Zdzich (left), walking towards the camera across a bridge in Munich, 1947. The camera zooms in on cousin Zdzich's face.
>> …that my cousin, as a camp physician in another town in Germany, made with a nurse from Winnipeg, who also came originally…
[01:06-01:10]
Cut to Stefan Carter in front of the camera.
>> …from Warsaw and was brought by her uncle and aunt who owned a store in Winnipeg.
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Cut to black-and-white photograph of Nurse Etta Brenner posing in nurse uniform, zooming in towards Etta's face.
>> There was some regulation or schema whereby displaced people could be sponsored…
[01:21-1:33]
Cut to Stefan Carter in front of the camera.
>> …by people who resided here as this family did. And they agreed to sponsor me, after my cousin told the nurse and she told her uncle and aunt what the situation was.
[01:34-01:38]
Cut to black-and-white photograph of Stefan Carter and Etta Brenner smiling arm-in-arm, standing outdoors in front of a white fence during winter in Winnipeg, circa 1950.
>> So I did come to Winnipeg in the fall of 1948.
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Second inter-title in white text on black screen: While living in Winnipeg, 20-year-old Stefan aimed to continue his studies in medicine at the University of Manitoba.
[01:45-2:20]
[Music off] Cut to Stefan Carter in front of the camera.
>> I was vigorously studying English while I was in Munich, expecting that I would go somewhere west. So I did know English to some extent, and I could communicate. I made a contact with a rabbi in the Hillel organization in Winnipeg, and I believe I corresponded with him from Munich when I knew that I would be coming here. Because it took a number of months or maybe even six months before actually I did arrive. And I contacted him after arrival.
[2:21-2:28]
[Instrumental music] Cut to black-and-white photograph of Stefan Carter standing in front of an X-ray unit survey truck, 1950.
>> …And he tried to facilitate for me to be admitted to the University of Manitoba and I took a year of pre-med there.
[2:29-2:39]
Music plays for the remainder of the video. Three credit pages appear in white text on black screen: Interview conducted by Nada Rubin, Second Generation Group, Winnipeg, 1988, Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada
Images: Stefan Carter Family Collection
Directing and Colorization: Helgi Piccinin; Editing: Michaël Gravel, Helgi Piccinin; Audio Mix and Original Music: Pierre-Luc Lecours. [Logo for Chaire de recherché du Canada en patrimoine ethnologique]
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, copyright 2017.
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End of transcript.