May 8, 1949 — The Parfomuk family sailed from Bremerhaven, Germany on a U.S. Navy troop ship, the USAT Marine Marlin, bound for New York. Their emigration to the United States was made possible by the The Displaced Persons Act of 1948, signed by President Truman, which allowed 200,000 European DPs into the United States. All the Parfomuk family members appear on the passenger list above for the Marine Marlin, which carried 884 displaced persons altogether. Wladyslaw Parfomuk volunteered for mess hall duty serving food on the voyage. In the picture above, he is standing on deck in his mess hall uniform as the ship sails by the cliffs of Dover, England. The Marine Marlin docked at Pier 61 in Manhattan (Chelsea) at W. 21st Street on May 18, 1949 at 8:40 in the morning. The New York Times article above reports the ship’s arrival.
I arrived on the Marine Marlin as a 2 1/2 year old with my parents in July 1949.
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That’s remarkable, Rosalie! If you have any old family photographs from the staging port in Bremerhaven or from the ship, I would love to see them.
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