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British Citizen Memories 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock Hanna Hemingway There's a reel in here [points to her head]. I can’t get it out of my mind. It's there. I just wish somebody would erase it... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre was part of the Dutch Resistance & incarcerated in Ravensbrück. Her parents & sister were murdered in Auschwitz & Sobibór. She is a Holocaust educator & best-selling memoirist. Selma van de Perre Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Selma van de Perre Close Family Murdered Concentration Camp Nerves of Steel Ravensbrück Resistance Slave Labourer Telling The Story Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Selma van de Perre was part of the Dutch Resistance & incarcerated in Ravensbrück. Her parents & sister were murdered in Auschwitz & Sobibór. She is a Holocaust educator & best-selling memoirist. I didn’t speak at all the first 30 years! To anyone or anything or myself. It was in 1975 with the opening of the Ravensbrück Memorial in Amsterdam. They asked me again to come. I went. For the first time. They said, 'Why didn’t you come before?' But I was building up a new life in Britain. You know. But since then, I've been every year. My nephews said to me: 'You must write it down Selma because you’re the last one of the family, & it must be told.' I made a few notes but I never did anything about it. But it was at this painting class, where I said, 'I can’t come next week because I’m going to Holland'. The teacher said 'How nice, have a lovely holiday.' I said 'it’s really not a holiday. It’s you know, it’s that & that. I'll give a few talks.' She said, 'What about?' So, I said a few things. She asked for more. She said 'I never knew this! Concentration camps in Holland? Resistance workers? I didn’t know there were resistance workers in Holland.' She'd never heard of Ravensbrück. And people never thought that there were non-Jewish resistance workers, certainly not Jewish resistance workers. That's why I think it's necessary to talk & write. Because so very little is known about Jewish resistance workers. Because if they—when they were caught, they were killed! Nobody was alive after the war. Hardly anyone. Very few, like me. That’s why it’s not known. That’s why I thought it needs to be written. I'm glad I did. Now I'm used to talking about it. I’ve done that so often in Holland & Germany, workshops. During the war, Selma was a slave labourer for various German companies including Siemens. The archives of Siemens were closed for years. Until, one day I received an invitation. One of the directors of Siemens asked me to come over at a dinner. The Director of Ravensbrück arranged the dinner. That’s when Germans started asking me. First of all Siemens asked me to give a talk to the young employees. They took me to the factory. My experiences had a big impact on me, of course. I tell myself to enjoy every day & I try to do that. I’m very glad I’m alive still every day, & every morning I know that. Also I don’t attach so much thought about things that go wrong or break. It’s not a human life. 936: Why It's Necessary To Talk & Write Selma van de Perre Edited from Selma van de Perre's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

987: Father's Deportation Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Betty Bloom Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Betty Bloom Close Family Murdered Encounter With Nazi Officials Never Finding Out Polenaktion Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Berlin, October 28, 1938: Betty Bloom's father Joseph Schütz is deported back to Poland as part of the Polenaktion: Unfortunately, at 6am, there was a knock on the door & two Gestapo officers marched in & arrested my father. He didn't even have time to say goodbye to us. They took him down the stairs. He was on the first transport of Polish Jews to—you know—deported from Berlin to a place on the Polish border. The Poles wouldn't let him in. They were left there in October without any clothes, without anything, without any heating, for months. They couldn't go back; they couldn't go forward until the Poles eventually relented & let them into Poland. My father made contact with his family. In Poland he went first to stay with his mother in a place called Nowy Sącz, not far from Jaslo near the Czech border. I don't know how long he was there for. We had one or two calls from him. I had a cousin left in Berlin who sent parcels to my father because she was in hiding but she managed to send parcels to my father which I've never forgotten. I know he ended up in Buchenwald eventually because a survivor from Buchenwald made contact with my mother & came & told her that he was with him in Buchenwald in '44. At the end of '44, beginning '45. I assume he was in the death march from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen. 15 years ago my husband & I went to Auschwitz. We searched the records in Auschwitz but found no record of my father. I don't know the exact date that the Red Cross contacted us & informed us that the last record they have of my father is in Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, which to us was the worst news we could have had. Because to survive from '38 to '45 & then to die like this. Now after these deportations to Poland was the Kristallnacht because one of the people whose parents were deported—you probably know his name, a young man, Grynszpan. He was so angry that he killed a German in Paris which gave the Nazis the excuse for for Kristallnacht. Following Kristallnacht, I was very aware of what's going on because even at 7 or 8, at the end of our road, there was a display panel for Der Stürmer—the Nazi magazine. I read it. I read anything I could read. They made, there was a sign on our shop saying "Kauft nicht bei Juden", don't buy from Jews, even before my father was deported. So, I was well aware of what was going on. So then my mother's brother was sending his children to England, on the Kindertransport. And my older sister Ruth started to say we must do the same. 987: Father's Deportation Betty Bloom Adapted from Betty Bloom's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, February 2020 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: Ruth Jackson Read Full Text Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Home All Memories About Menu Close ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Ruth Jackson Destruction Of Property November Pogrom / Kristallnacht Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Germany See Locations Full Text Ruth Jackson, age 12, Berlin, November 8, 1938: For the Nazis, you didn’t have to do anything wrong, you just had to be Jewish. On the day before Kristallnacht, the Nazi Youth went round & painted a big white ‘J’ or wrote the word ‘Jude’ meaning ‘Jew’, on all the shop windows in Berlin, so that was an easier target for them. On the actual night I was woken—my parents told me to get dressed, & we all sat & waited, because we could hear all the noise down the roads, of lorries, people being—shouted, being pulled out of their homes. There was a furrier opposite us & he had two small children. They were pulled out in their nightclothes & shoved onto the lorry. It was a very frightening experience. I was waiting for them to come into our house any moment now, but somehow we got missed out. It was a corner house & they went round the corner & they took a young family with a baby. I really couldn’t understand what they could have done wrong. So we sat there waiting & finally with a lot of shouting & banging, a lot of noise everywhere, glass flying, the Nazis left. My mother made the usual cup of coffee & said, ‘Now we can go to bed’, but we really couldn’t go to sleep any more. The next morning she told me not to go to school, but I was fond of school so I went, only to find that my school had been ransacked. We had vines growing up the school & we enjoyed harvesting the grapes, but they had all been pulled down. The books were all smouldering from the fire in the foreground. The building was a new building so it was very much of a concrete block, they couldn’t do much there but the glass windows of course were broken, the furniture was broken or burnt. The Headmistress told us to go home again, very quietly, but in small groups, which we did. After that, my parents thought it was best that I went to another school again, which I did. The new school was not far away from the KDW, if you know where that is, it’s a big store, on Joachimsthaler Strasse, it was called the Josef-Lehmann-Schule. So I went there, just for a short time, until I emigrated. After going to the new school I used to quite often walk to the school, take a bus in the morning, walk home again. I quite liked walking down the Kurfürstendamm, especially at Christmastime, they used to have Christmas trees for sale all along the road, & they had booths along there, selling things, Christmassy things. Like any other child I enjoyed looking at those, but I couldn’t understand why all these people were all in such a happy mood. They didn’t seem to care about what was happening to us at all. And Hanukkah, that’s our feast of lights, was spent very quietly at home. 991: My Ransacked School Ruth Jackson Adapted from Ruth Jackson's interview with Helen Lloyd for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, August 2004 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

British Internment Memories 952: Interned On My 16th Birthday John Goldsmith In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman... Read Full Memory 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge & I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Ruth Edwards Read full biography at The AJR / Refugee Voices Testimony Archive Memories 964: The Next Thing Is We Were Gone Ruth Edwards I was on the train and saw my father crying. That made me cry. My mother said, perhaps she doesn't want to go. I said, yes, I do want to go... Read Full Memory Previous Person Next Person

Arrow Cross Memories 929: Fending For Myself Aged 9 Stephen Nagy I contracted scarlet fever. You had to go to an isolation hospital for six weeks. The fascist Hungarians took over. So, I was stuck in hospital... Read Full Memory 942: Father's New Woman John Hajdu MBE In each flat it was about 20 of us squeezed in. The area was guarded by the Arrow Cross Party: fascist & brutal. Hardly any food... Read Full Memory 943: The Legless Side Of The Bed Laszlo Roman I was always told I mustn’t pee by the side of the road because someone might see that I am circumcised... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Food Memories 933: Interned In Algeria Erna Klein One Arabic sentence helped a lot. It meant: ‘Are you drunk or whatever is the matter with you?’ That helped me out of a few difficult situations... Read Full Memory 937: Eichmann Asking For Chopped Liver Fred Barschak On Saturday: elderly Jews scrubbing the pavements & marvellous shouts of ‘At last, Hitler’s found work for the Jews!' Read Full Memory 939: How To Bake A Stuffed Pike Fred Barschak The building still exists. Right next to the Prater, the great playground. But when I went back 25 years later I was disappointed... Read Full Memory 940: Bringing The Alarm Clock Hanna Hemingway There's a reel in here [points to her head]. I can’t get it out of my mind. It's there. I just wish somebody would erase it... Read Full Memory 941: Sharing The Sandwiches Henry Wuga MBE Ingrid & I got married on December 26 1944. In the middle of the war. We were in love & there was nothing to wait for. We were 20... Read Full Memory 944: Cat Piddle In My Beer Rudolph Sabor It strengthened my belief: this cannot be forever. A cultured people like the Germans, would wake up any day. Total delusion... Read Full Memory 955: 28 People Hiding In The Loft Rivka Reich We thought going to Auschwitz would be just hard labour. But my father was different. He thought we must escape... Read Full Memory 960: The Awful Heydrich Reprisals Frank Bright Two Gestapo men came to our flat & asked where was I at the time. My mother had been indoors. I had just arrived from school... Read Full Memory 975: Life In A Siberian Labour Camp Izak Wiesenfeld We were taken by lorries into the forest, to a huge barrack. The first speech: “You will never get out of here, here you will die..." Read Full Memory 977: The Cruel Guardian Maria Ault My first guardians were fine. But when we were evacuated we stayed with a very, very, very, very bad person who used to hit us... Read Full Memory 989: Buying Sauerkraut & Soap Eva Mendelsson When you're a child, when nasty things happen, you remember. It makes a tremendous impression, even if you don’t quite understand... Read Full Memory 992: Chickenpox Bridget Newman I was stuck. Then one day, the doorbell rang: a Gestapo. He came in, he was really rather nice. He had white hair & a big, white moustache... Read Full Memory 998: Red Oaks Boarding School Ruth Jackson I was led upstairs to an empty dormitory & told that the very end bed was mine & I should have a bath & come down to tea. I felt miserable... Read Full Memory Previous Experience Next Experience

Willie Field, born in Germany, took part in the D-Day Landings for the British Army: That was the best thing that could happen to me. After all, I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge and I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling. Willie joined the army in Australia, where he'd been sent on the HMT Dunera to be interned by the British government: It was ridiculous to send people who were refugees from Nazi oppression there. Finally, they sent a gentleman from the Home Office to Australia. His name was Major Layton. He tried to persuade young people to join the Pioneer Corps & come back to England. Of course, all of us youngsters immediately volunteered. We landed in Liverpool, where we were sworn in to be soldiers. We were given a pass & told that in ten days we have to report to Ilfracombe to join the Pioneer Corps. We were trained there. It was quite comical because most of us couldn't speak proper English. I must compare it with "Dad's Army" if you want me to be honest with you. We didn't have rifles or guns or anything. We had broomsticks, things like that. At least we were in the British Army & we were somebody. It was something I always wanted to do. From then on we were split up & sent to various Companies. I was sent, with one or two of my friends, to a company near Oxford - 65 Company. We had to build huts & roads. Then I was sent to Internee 149 Company at Catterick Camp. It was always the same: building huts or building canvas & that was not what I really wanted to do. I was 22 years old & thought I could be doing better things than building huts etc. Then, all of a sudden, they called us in & said, "You don't have to, but, if you want, you can join the fighting forces." I thought, now is my time, so that is what I did. I was thinking, "What shall I join? The infantry? No, I don't want to start walking". So, I said I wanted to go into the tank, the Royal Armoured Corps. I applied but you don't hear anything. After about a month, the Commanding Officer called me in & said, "You have been accepted for the RAC, but you have got to go on a test." I said, "That's all right." They sent me to Aberystwyth for a week. They gave us mental & physical tests. I was accepted. Eventually I was sent to Ilfracombe to the RAC & trained as a tank driver. I changed my ordinary Pioneer hat to a black beret with a tank on there. I was so proud you can't imagine. I used to walk through Ilfracombe & think: at last now I can do a bit of fighting. I passed my tank driving test & was sent to Norfolk, Thetford, to the King's 8th Royal Irish Hussars. I was of good German origin & was accepted by them as their own. I had no problems. Nothing. I was given a tank & a crew. A tank crew consists of a tank driver, a co-driver, a wireless operator, a gunner & a commander. We trained to get ready for the D-Day landing. I was the tank driver. The tank driver's job was to look after the tank, ensure everything's all right, that there is always enough petrol. The best thing that happened in my life. Not only it was the comradeship, it was wonderful - completely different from the Pioneer Corps. You are somebody then. No anti-Semitism. They knew I was Jewish, originally from Germany. I was absolutely like one of them. We trained & eventually went to Bognor Regis & got our tank ready for the D-Day landing. The D-Day landing we took part. I was always with them. I took part at the Normandy Landing it is called. We landed and I was with them. It was a wonderful thing for me arriving in France & taking German prisoners. For me that was one thing I always wanted to do ever since I left Germany. A wonderful feeling & wonderful comradeship. We went right through to Holland & here comes the sad part I'm afraid. We were always together with my five, we lived together. On the way to Nijmegen & Arnhem, my tank was knocked out by a German 88 gun &, unfortunately, everybody was killed except me. A dreadful thing. I managed to try to save the gunner operator. He had his leg already off, his arm was half off but he was still alive. I got him behind the tank & managed to get the ambulance boys to pick him up. I couldn't pick him up. I was wounded myself, but it was a blessing he died on the way. That was a terrible thing. I was in hospital for a few days. But, like everything, if you fall off a bicycle you get on the bicycle straight away. They gave me another tank. I went through to Hamburg & we took Hamburg. 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 961: Having My Revenge ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Willy Field Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Edited from Willy Field's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2003 • Learn More → Willy Field Australian Internment British Army British Internment HMT Dunera Nerves of Steel Recovery Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts France See Locations Full Text Willie Field, born in Germany, took part in the D-Day Landings for the British Army: That was the best thing that could happen to me. After all, I was a refugee from Nazi oppression. I wanted to have my revenge and I had my revenge. That was a wonderful feeling. Willie joined the army in Australia, where he'd been sent on the HMT Dunera to be interned by the British government: It was ridiculous to send people who were refugees from Nazi oppression there. Finally, they sent a gentleman from the Home Office to Australia. His name was Major Layton. He tried to persuade young people to join the Pioneer Corps & come back to England. Of course, all of us youngsters immediately volunteered. We landed in Liverpool, where we were sworn in to be soldiers. We were given a pass & told that in ten days we have to report to Ilfracombe to join the Pioneer Corps. We were trained there. It was quite comical because most of us couldn't speak proper English. I must compare it with "Dad's Army" if you want me to be honest with you. We didn't have rifles or guns or anything. We had broomsticks, things like that. At least we were in the British Army & we were somebody. It was something I always wanted to do. From then on we were split up & sent to various Companies. I was sent, with one or two of my friends, to a company near Oxford - 65 Company. We had to build huts & roads. Then I was sent to Internee 149 Company at Catterick Camp. It was always the same: building huts or building canvas & that was not what I really wanted to do. I was 22 years old & thought I could be doing better things than building huts etc. Then, all of a sudden, they called us in & said, "You don't have to, but, if you want, you can join the fighting forces." I thought, now is my time, so that is what I did. I was thinking, "What shall I join? The infantry? No, I don't want to start walking". So, I said I wanted to go into the tank, the Royal Armoured Corps. I applied but you don't hear anything. After about a month, the Commanding Officer called me in & said, "You have been accepted for the RAC, but you have got to go on a test." I said, "That's all right." They sent me to Aberystwyth for a week. They gave us mental & physical tests. I was accepted. Eventually I was sent to Ilfracombe to the RAC & trained as a tank driver. I changed my ordinary Pioneer hat to a black beret with a tank on there. I was so proud you can't imagine. I used to walk through Ilfracombe & think: at last now I can do a bit of fighting. I passed my tank driving test & was sent to Norfolk, Thetford, to the King's 8th Royal Irish Hussars. I was of good German origin & was accepted by them as their own. I had no problems. Nothing. I was given a tank & a crew. A tank crew consists of a tank driver, a co-driver, a wireless operator, a gunner & a commander. We trained to get ready for the D-Day landing. I was the tank driver. The tank driver's job was to look after the tank, ensure everything's all right, that there is always enough petrol. The best thing that happened in my life. Not only it was the comradeship, it was wonderful - completely different from the Pioneer Corps. You are somebody then. No anti-Semitism. They knew I was Jewish, originally from Germany. I was absolutely like one of them. We trained & eventually went to Bognor Regis & got our tank ready for the D-Day landing. The D-Day landing we took part. I was always with them. I took part at the Normandy Landing it is called. We landed and I was with them. It was a wonderful thing for me arriving in France & taking German prisoners. For me that was one thing I always wanted to do ever since I left Germany. A wonderful feeling & wonderful comradeship. We went right through to Holland & here comes the sad part I'm afraid. We were always together with my five, we lived together. On the way to Nijmegen & Arnhem, my tank was knocked out by a German 88 gun &, unfortunately, everybody was killed except me. A dreadful thing. I managed to try to save the gunner operator. He had his leg already off, his arm was half off but he was still alive. I got him behind the tank & managed to get the ambulance boys to pick him up. I couldn't pick him up. I was wounded myself, but it was a blessing he died on the way. That was a terrible thing. I was in hospital for a few days. But, like everything, if you fall off a bicycle you get on the bicycle straight away. They gave me another tank. I went through to Hamburg & we took Hamburg. 961: Having My Revenge Willy Field Edited from Willy Field's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, September 2003 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

Miriam Freedman, Nitra, Slovakia, wartime: It's difficult. Children feel very protected. Everything goes well. Then all of a sudden you see terrible things, like people disappearing all the time. They caught them in the street. They just disappeared but we did not know why. Then we had to put some shutters on our little place because hooligans used to come around & throw bottles. There were rumours that things were better in Hungary, so they sent my brother & sister, hoping they'd be okay. Neighbours wouldn't play with you anymore. Quite dangerous to go in the street. There was an alleyway behind our building in Nitra near the synagogue. Sometimes people were beaten up. I was about 8, they send me out to buy bread & milk, because they didn't harm children. My father came home from synagogue & said we had to wear the yellow star. I was always a bit of a rebel, so I didn't stitch on & took it off when I left the house. Very dangerous but I didn't know. I didn't like it because it was so big. But every time I went to the grocery they'd say: 'Why do the grown-ups always send children shopping?' They didn't harm children yet, but called us names, dirty Jew. But I didn't have a yellow star, so I said, how do you know? [Laughs] I was such a cheeky girl. How do you know I’m Jewish? I could be a gypsy. One incident I cannot forget: a man came once to see my late father. There's a kiosk not far, he asked me: "Could you go & get me some cigarettes? If you do, next time I'm here I'll bring you a doll." I didn't have any toys. He gave me the money & I went to buy him cigarettes. I went to the kiosk. The man said: why doesn't he want come buy himself the cigarettes? Is he afraid he's going to be hit, bashed around? Why does he send a little girl? So they realised I’m Jewish but somehow they didn't want to harm me. So this I remember. And I came back. I gave him the cigarettes & he promised me a doll. Of course I never saw him again, & that was the end of him. We don't know what happened. Then the bank confiscated my father's money. So he had to do any labour work to keep the family alive. Then he was taken away. At some point my parents put me alone with a man while they were looking for a place to hide. I was so afraid of this man, screaming for my parents. I found some scissors & cut my leg. He opened the door & saw, my parents came eventually. That was a horrible experience. Then an order came one day that all the Jews must be segregated in some place. We were taken to the railway station. But we were saved by my aunt's boyfriend who was a Hlinka Guard. He said to pretend my sister had typhus. We had the doctor, & she was carried in a blanket. So we were taken off & came back to our flat. But they put a black heart outside the flat, nobody should come near this building because there is typhus. My family brought us food. That’s the first rescue. We were very lucky with rescues. But every time it got worse & worse. Eventually Miriam, her mother & sister went into hiding with other family members in a small flat. Eight of us in one bedsitter. We couldn't contact my father or my other sister, so we lost them. The caretaker of the building was a communist & he helped us there. We'd been there a few days when we saw my father in the road. My uncle didn't call him. I can never forget that ’cos he must have tried to hide as well. Of course he was caught & taken to concentration camp. I never forget looking out the window, seeing him the last time. I wanted him so much. My mother wanted to put her shoes on. But my uncle said, if you go out, I’m not sure you can come back. 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat Miriam Freedman Credits & tags Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Previous Memory Next Memory ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Previous Memory Next Memory 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat ← Previous Memory All Memories Next Memory → Miriam Freedman Read Full Text Previous Memory Home Memories People Places Experiences About Contact Menu Close Next Memory ← Previous Memory Credits & tags Adapted from Miriam Freedman's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Miriam Freedman Attempted Humiliation Helped By Non-Jews In Hiding Yellow Star Read AJR biography Next Memory → See Instagram & Facebook posts Czechoslovakia See Locations Full Text Miriam Freedman, Nitra, Slovakia, wartime: It's difficult. Children feel very protected. Everything goes well. Then all of a sudden you see terrible things, like people disappearing all the time. They caught them in the street. They just disappeared but we did not know why. Then we had to put some shutters on our little place because hooligans used to come around & throw bottles. There were rumours that things were better in Hungary, so they sent my brother & sister, hoping they'd be okay. Neighbours wouldn't play with you anymore. Quite dangerous to go in the street. There was an alleyway behind our building in Nitra near the synagogue. Sometimes people were beaten up. I was about 8, they send me out to buy bread & milk, because they didn't harm children. My father came home from synagogue & said we had to wear the yellow star. I was always a bit of a rebel, so I didn't stitch on & took it off when I left the house. Very dangerous but I didn't know. I didn't like it because it was so big. But every time I went to the grocery they'd say: 'Why do the grown-ups always send children shopping?' They didn't harm children yet, but called us names, dirty Jew. But I didn't have a yellow star, so I said, how do you know? [Laughs] I was such a cheeky girl. How do you know I’m Jewish? I could be a gypsy. One incident I cannot forget: a man came once to see my late father. There's a kiosk not far, he asked me: "Could you go & get me some cigarettes? If you do, next time I'm here I'll bring you a doll." I didn't have any toys. He gave me the money & I went to buy him cigarettes. I went to the kiosk. The man said: why doesn't he want come buy himself the cigarettes? Is he afraid he's going to be hit, bashed around? Why does he send a little girl? So they realised I’m Jewish but somehow they didn't want to harm me. So this I remember. And I came back. I gave him the cigarettes & he promised me a doll. Of course I never saw him again, & that was the end of him. We don't know what happened. Then the bank confiscated my father's money. So he had to do any labour work to keep the family alive. Then he was taken away. At some point my parents put me alone with a man while they were looking for a place to hide. I was so afraid of this man, screaming for my parents. I found some scissors & cut my leg. He opened the door & saw, my parents came eventually. That was a horrible experience. Then an order came one day that all the Jews must be segregated in some place. We were taken to the railway station. But we were saved by my aunt's boyfriend who was a Hlinka Guard. He said to pretend my sister had typhus. We had the doctor, & she was carried in a blanket. So we were taken off & came back to our flat. But they put a black heart outside the flat, nobody should come near this building because there is typhus. My family brought us food. That’s the first rescue. We were very lucky with rescues. But every time it got worse & worse. Eventually Miriam, her mother & sister went into hiding with other family members in a small flat. Eight of us in one bedsitter. We couldn't contact my father or my other sister, so we lost them. The caretaker of the building was a communist & he helped us there. We'd been there a few days when we saw my father in the road. My uncle didn't call him. I can never forget that ’cos he must have tried to hide as well. Of course he was caught & taken to concentration camp. I never forget looking out the window, seeing him the last time. I wanted him so much. My mother wanted to put her shoes on. But my uncle said, if you go out, I’m not sure you can come back. 985: Black Heart Outside The Flat Miriam Freedman Adapted from Miriam Freedman's interview with Dr Bea Lewkowicz for AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, July 2024 • Learn More → Text adapted and edited by Susanna Kleeman Facebook & Instagram Posts

See Locations Belgium Memories 924: The Babies Not Sent To Auschwitz Jacques Weisser BEM I have absolutely no memory of any kind whatsoever about the war other than what I have been told... Read Full Memory 973: The Puzzle & The Blanks Jacques Weisser BEM I should've delved more into it, asking questions. But most of the time after the war I wasn't with my father... Read Full Memory 981: 4th of the 4th, 1944 Jack Cynamon My first recollection is aeroplanes in the sky in Brussels. One morning the sky was full of aeroplanes. There must have been 60... Read Full Memory 982: Not Dwelling On Things Gerta Regensburger I have no feelings & not many memories. I’m not a very retrospective person. It always amazes me that so many people remember... Read Full Memory Antwerp Ardennes Brussels Virton Locations Previous Country Next Country

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