It was a very complicated matter to do this. First of all, the American consulates
had been instructed, as we now know, not to make it too easy for people, for Jews
to enter the United States. And since the German quota for
immigration into the States at that time was 25,000 people per year,
and the government made no allowances borrowing from other quotas.
That was it, and we now also have found out that those quotas were never even
filled even though, at that time, we didn't know it. There was such an
onslaught for requests that then the consulate issued
numbers, first-come first-serve numbers like in a delicatessen store this was
never an official announcement-- it spread over Germany by word of mouth. I know my
parents had friends with whom they got together regularly, who by a
very casual conversation said, "Well, there is now a quota system, you have
to get numbers in order before you can go to the consulate." Our consulate was
in Stuttgart. You have to apply for a number and immediately my mother would
call up her sister in Berlin and say, "Listen you've got to get a number."
My parents had a fairly low number, it was-- I have the documentation-- it was in the fourteen thousands.
That was considered a low number; by the time her sister was able
to get to a consulate and get a number they were in the seventy thousands and
that was like a condemnation to death.