Ery Magasanik papers

Ery Magasanik’s father Michael Magasanik (b. 1900) was born in Berditchev, Russia (now Berdychiv, Ukraine). The Magasanik family fled antisemitic persecution in Russia and sought protection in Romania around 1922. Michael Magasanik married Judith Bromberg (1908-1989) from Minsk in 1932. Ery Magasanik and his brother Daniel were born in Bucharest in 1936 and 1939. Despite their wealth, the Magasanik family left Bucharest in the spring of 1940 due to rising antisemitism and allyship with Nazi Germany. The family left Romania using the “Empire of Iran” passports Michael Magasanik had acquired in the late 1920s. They traveled by train from Bucharest through Bulgaria and Greece to Istanbul. Taking money out of Romania was prohibited, but Michael Masanik hid the family’s money under the rug of an adjacent train compartment until after they crossed the Bulgarian border. From Istanbul they flew to Beirut and then traveled by land to Tel Aviv, then under the British Mandate. In 1941, the Magasaniks flew to Mumbai, stopping overnight in Basra. Two weeks later they boarded a ship to the Americas with a stop in Cape Town. They disembarked in Trinidad and two weeks later flew to Havana, where they waited six months for US visas. They flew to Miami and arrived in New York City by train in April 1942. They joined their maternal grandparents and maternal uncles and aunts in New York.