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May 6, 2005
War bride's long journey
Jewish Londoner was one of the first to arrive in B.C.
LINDA KORBIN
Esther Korbin Yacht has a vivid recollection of the day, 60 years
ago this month, that she arrived at the Toronto train station, one
of the first English war brides entering Canada to begin a new life.
A newspaper photographer, covering the arrival of what was the beginning
of a large influx of war brides, asked her to pose for a photo.
"I was so thin, my clothes were falling off of me," she
recalled.
Twenty-four years old and with two infants in tow, Esther had made
the journey from London to Halifax on a crowded Greek freighter,
boarded a train and was on her way to meet her husband's family
in Nelson. Sam Korbin, along with a number of other young Jewish
Canadians, had enlisted in the army the moment war broke out and,
with the end of the war imminent, knew he would be one of the first
servicemen demobilized. He wanted his wife and kids to arrive ahead
of him, so that they could settle into their new life in advance
of his return.
The trip was a harrowing one, which began and ended travelling in
a convoy. The threat of torpedoes from German U-boats was always
imminent. People had to stay dressed at all times in the event of
an emergency.
"They offered me sleeping accommodation in a hammock,"
Esther remembered, "but I insisted they find me a bed. All
three of us shared the bed, and I hung the diapers out in the corridor."
The voyage took two weeks because the freighter, also carrying members
of the diplomatic service to a meeting in the United States, took
a circuitous route across the ocean as a safety precaution.
Exhausted and thin upon her arrival, Esther was ready to face her
next challenge, adjusting to life in small-town Nelson, so very
different from London. The family eventually moved to Vancouver,
where she has lived for more than 50 years. Her husband Sam died
in 1961. Esther remembers her final Passover seder in London, which
was the occasion for her to say farewell to all her family. She
left the following day on her journey to Canada.
This year, she shared the seder table with her children, grandchildren
and great-grandchildren and reminisced about a 60th anniversary
that somehow seemed like yesterday.
Linda Korbin is Esther Korbin Yacht's daughter.
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