A woman who emigrated to Canada to work as a maid describes how the employers
chose the maids at Montreal station.
T.Μ.: Yes. We didn’t go… we didn’t come to Halifax the
way everybody else was coming. And… we had gone then they took us all outside…
Everybody was. We passed from Malta and we also passed from the Azores. And
the ship had taken a lot of people. And here where we came, they put us on the
train and we came to Montreal to… Saint-Polermi they called it, an area where
there was a military… military… that. And there they kept us for eight days.
And the Jewish women came there and they picked us. With the finger. (Laughs)
Whoever each one of them wanted.
RES.: And, that is, how did they know who they want?
T.Μ.: Eh, our face they looked at (Laughs). Our
beauty. (Laughs) I don’t know. (Laughs) They looked at our beauty. They chose
it. She says “I want her! I want her!”. And… we went as maids, let’s say, to
the house.
