How do you like America? : A family chronicle.

The memoirs were written in 2000 in California and contain some of the author's diary entries during the years of the family's emigration and reminiscences of the author's father. Detailed description of family history going back to the early 19th century. The author's grandfather Moses Stern had a rawproduct business in Gelsenkirchen, Westphalia. His father Max Stern took his graduate exam (Abitur) at the Jacobsohn boarding school in 1904 and was sent to a business school in Brussles, Belgium. Work in the family business M. Stern AG. World War One and rise of the family business with branches throughout Germany and offices in New York, London, Milan and Stockholm. Due to political unrest at the end of the war the business administration moved to Essen. Description of the family background of Beate Herzberg, the author's mother. Courtship of his parents and marriage in 1922. Birth of his sister Annelore in 1923. Martin Stern was born in 1924. Description of the family household and domestic life in a well-to-do family in the 1920s. Friday visits to the synagogue and celebration of Jewish holidays. Vacations at the Baltic Sea and skiinig in the Alps. Martin attended a Jewish elementary school. Rising Nazism. After Hitler came to power in 1933 the author's father immediately started preparations for the family's emigration, but was persuaded to stay by his family. Life under Nazi rule. Martin attended Gymnasium and was one of only two Jewish students in his class. Antisemitic incidents. Private lessons in piano and Hebrew. Bar Mitzvah in 1937. Recollections of performances of the Kulturbund.Lessons in Italian and preparations for emigration. The family left Germany for Turin, Italy in 1937. Life in Italy and sign of spreading fascism and move to France in 1938. Life in Paris and lessons in French. Move to Grenoble. Description of various schools in Italy and France. German invasion in 1940. Fervent attempts to leave the country for England failed. The family escaped to Marseilles, Bordeaux and Bayonne and failed attempt to escape to Marocco. Finally the family succeeded in leaving for Algiers, where they arrived on July 4th of 1940. They went to Morocco and were granted exit permits for the United States. The family left for the United States via Portugal in August of 1940. They arrived in New York in September 1940.Martin Stern was born in 1924 in Essen, Germany and grew up in a well-to-do Jewish family, owners of the M. Stern AG. He attended Gymnasium during the Nazi years in Germany. The family left for Italy in 1937 and emigrated to France in 1938. After the German invasion they escaped to Algiers in 1940 and arrived in the United States in September of 1940.Synopsis in fileAplerbeckChamberyGrenobleHachenOramTorinoChildhoodEducation, Jewish, 1918-1933Education, primary and secondary, 1933-1945Jews, liturgy and ritua