06/17/2026
"I was born in 1937, just before the Anschluss, when Germany annexed Austria," explained resident Ricky Ball at a recent gathering of the Shalom Club at Orchard Cove. "Austria did not put up any resistance. Austria was very much in sympathy with Germany, and they became one country. There was a general panic in Austria amongst the Jewish people. Many were prescient enough to get out earlier, but the vast majority of Jews considered themselves Austrian and did not think they were at risk. That was a miscalculation of major proportions."
In 1938, Ball’s family moved from Windischgarsten — a village in Upper Austria on the old Roman road, where her grandfather owned a country store — to 3 Rudolfsplatz in Vienna, an apartment with a balcony in a neighborhood that was not generally Jewish.
"The balcony turned out to be very important, because the N***s were going door to door to what they thought were Jewish households," Ball said. "They stormed up to the door, and my mother opened it. My father heard them and raced out to the balcony, where he couldn't be seen from inside the apartment. The Gestapo ran through the whole apartment and couldn't find him. My mother said he was a salesman and was on the road, and since they couldn't find him, they left. It was a close call."
In October of that year, the family immigrated to Trinidad on what they believe was the last boat to arrive. "About two months after, they shut the doors to immigration," she said. All of the Austrian and German refugees, including her family, were interned in a camp surrounded by barbed wire and heavily monitored by guards.
The family faced immediate tragedy in the camp: Ball's sister Susie was born there and died of malaria nine months later.
"During the time we were in the camp, the people there had nothing to do. It was extreme boredom, people were depressed, and the war was going on all around us," Ball said. Because of Trinidad's strategic location close to the approach to the Panama Canal, the war was never far away.
She was entertained by her father, who made her a violin, a doll carriage, and a kitchen. "That is how he filled his time: making toys for me," she said.
The family eventually moved from the camp to Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad. There were still many restrictions: Immigrants couldn’t ride bicycles or drive cars, and they had to report to the police station daily. Ball shared a "standing joke" with the officer at the police station, who was seemingly unable to pronounce her family's name, Weisz, repeating the same mispronunciation each time they checked in.
"Awareness of the war was omnipresent, but we were very, very lucky. There were no real bombing attacks, and there was no fighting on the island itself. You could have a degree of normalcy, which was amazing, even though the war was going on all around us and all around the world," she said.
Ball shared a childhood photo of herself selling war bonds on the island.
"During the war, there was a lot of unrest, but amongst the immigrants, there was a lot of support for the war effort. Even though people didn't have much in the way of money, they tried all they could to support organizations that were supporting the war effort," she said.
One of her favorite memories from life in Trinidad was Carnival and the steel drum performances. "It's people gathering in the streets, some of them in costumes," she said. "As a child, I looked forward to Carnival every year. It was wonderful!"
Her family traveled to the United States in 1947 on a medical visa for her mother. Though she underwent surgery, her mother went blind. "We applied for our immigration visas [to stay in New Jersey], and we were told we were not eligible. It was a terrible blow to us, and we hired a lawyer and did our best to meet all the requirements to stay in this country," Ball said. Returning to Trinidad was not an option — there were no services for blind people there — and going back to Vienna was impossible because Hi**er had revoked citizenship for Jews.
Her mother became a permanent resident, then a U.S. citizen, thanks to intervention by Rep. Gordon Canfield of New Jersey. Ball went on to study at Brandeis University. She became a permanent resident of the United States in 1958 through her marriage to her beloved husband, Jay Ball.
"It was a long and torturous journey, but I'm very grateful for all of those little pieces of luck that allowed me to be standing here in front of you," Ball said.
Ball and her husband settled in Natick, where she served as president of the Natick League of Women Voters and became the first female member of the town's Board of Selectmen. Her contributions to the civic fabric of Natick are many, including as founder of The Center for the Arts in Natick, a vibrant venue for the performing and visual arts.
