Refugee Story Quotes

At age 14, my paternal grandfather fled Poland to escape the pogroms that killed tens of thousands of European Jews. He worked full-time for a cobbler in Boston, making his way to California and eventually starting his own business in Taft - the Goldman Oil Supply Company.

My parents are Vietnamese refugees; they left Vietnam after the war. They were part of the boat people, and they ended up in a refugee camp in Thailand after being on the water for three days, and I was born at that refugee camp in Thailand.

I love 'Exit West' by Mohsin Hamid. It's a magical realism retelling of the refugee experience, where people find these magical doors that transport them to another country.

My parents were engineers. In the 1970s, they came to the United States as refugees from Uganda. Seeing everything this country did for my family inspired me to want to give back through public service.

When we were in Egypt, we were refugees. My family and I were homeless. For five years, out of all of the countries in the world that my father was contacting, the only one that took us in was England.

Only in America could a refugee girl from Central Europe become secretary of state.

My parents came to this country after World War II, Jews from Czechoslovakia who had survived Auschwitz and Dachau. They settled with my sister in rural Ohio in the 1950s, where my dad became the town doctor and I was born.

My own father was a refugee from the Spanish civil war in the 1930s, later going on to become a BBC radio producer after World War II.

Yes, I got my first Bolex camera a few weeks after being dropped in New York by the United Nations Refugee Organization. That was on October 29th, 1949. With my brother Adolfas, we wanted to make a film about displaced persons, how one feels being uprooted from one's home.

My father, a refugee from Eastern Europe, was preparing a fraudulent marriage to an American citizen as a route to this country when he was sponsored, making fraud unnecessary. My wife's grandfather bought papers from another Chinese villager to be able to come to the United States.

My father was an Austrian, and he brought some Torahs over to this country, ancient Torahs that were slipped out of Germany.

If not for the Kindertransport, I would not be here today.

I grew up in Somalia, in Saudi Arabia, in Ethiopia, and in Kenya. I came to Europe in 1992, when I was 22, and became a member of Parliament in Holland.

I don't support terrorism and never have. As a Sri Lankan that fled war and bombings, my music is the voice of the civilian refugee.

My grandfather arrived in Houston in 1942 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. He had lost everything - his profession, his language, his money - but the city welcomed him, as it has hundreds of thousands of immigrants over the years.

I swam. We made it, our team, from the rocks of Cuba to the beach of Florida, in squeaky-clean, ethical fashion.

My father came by himself across the North Korean border when he was seventeen. And hasn't seen his brothers or sisters or parents since then. And he died some time ago, but never saw any of his relatives. My mother was a refugee in war-torn Korea.

My mother was able to get out of Germany because her father was Russian and those with a Russian passport could leave. My father was not so fortunate. He had to be smuggled out of Germany by being tied to the bow of a vegetable freighter that was leaving in the North Sea. He almost lost a leg because it was so cold, but he ended up in France.

When the Lebanese Civil War started in 1975, I was 15. I was shipped to boarding school in England and, after that, to UCLA.

I believe in the promise of America. Being a Cuban refugee, having come here when I was eight, I know that this is a shining city on the hill.

I left Somalia when I was seven years old, but I witnessed a whole year in a war.

On Veterans Day, I can't help think of my uncles who volunteered for the service after fleeing a brutal regime in the Dominican Republic. They hadn't been in America long, but they were already so grateful for its opportunities that they were eager to serve.

I'm the daughter of refugees. The immigrant mentality is to work hard, be brave, and never give up in your pursuit of achieving the American dream.

Paddington Bear was a refugee with a label - 'Please look after this bear. Thank you', and he had a little suitcase.

I am the face of a refugee. I was once a refugee. I was with my family in exile.