- Mr. Ringel, please tell me when and where
- you were born and something about your family background.
- I was born on December 23rd, 1910,
- in Mainz, a city in Western Germany.
- And after a few years, my parents moved to Frankfurt.
- My parents came from what is now Poland.
- I believe that my mother was born in a little town
- by the name of Radomysl in the western part of today's Poland.
- Around 1905, my parents, who were married, then,
- for only two or three years, moved to Germany
- and settled in Mainz.
- Why did they move to Germany?
- My father was a partner in an export business,
- in that little town, exporting eggs and butter.
- And as I remember from my father's stories, about 1904
- their warehouse was destroyed by a fire.
- And at that time, they were uninsured.
- So they lost everything they had.
- The business then was restarted by my grandfather and an older
- son.
- There was not enough for three families.
- That may have been the reason why
- they moved to the west, where they had always done business
- with importers, German importers.
- What did your father do in Frankfurt?
- He continued the same business.
- In other words, he became, instead of an exporter,
- he became an importer and agent importing eggs, no butter.
- But as I recollect just eggs, which
- was an important item in those days.
- Where did you live in Frankfurt?
- We lived in the southern part of the city.
- And--
- Do you remember the street and house number?
- Yes, It was Lindenstrasse 20, a residential area,
- where we lived from, approximately, 1923 till 1933.
- How many members were there in your family?
- I had two sisters and one brother.
- Did your father have a business place in Frankfurt
- or was it outside of Frankfurt?
- No, it was in Frankfurt.
- As a matter of fact, we had a large apartment.
- And one of the rooms was an office.
- And my father conducted the business from the apartment
- where we were living.
- You went to school in Frankfurt?
- Yes, I went to school.
- Can you describe that background?
- Yes.
- It was, to my knowledge, the only Jewish gymnasium
- in Germany.
- And it was called Philanthropin.
- It was founded by the secretary of the Rothschild, famous
- Rothschild family in Frankfurt around 1860 or so.
- How many students were in the school?
- Oh, the school had--
- there were two parts, the boys' schools,
- which had about 400 to 500 students, including
- the high school, and a girls' school,
- in a different part of the building--
- perhaps 250 girls.
- Where was the school located?
- I can't remember this.
- Hebelstrasse.
- Now I remember, Hebelstrasse in Frankfurt.
- Did you walk to school?
- No, on bicycle.
- How far was it to the high school?
- About 15 minutes ride from our house to the school.
- As you were growing up and going to the school,
- did you ever encounter any act of antisemitism or anything
- personally that happened to you?
- I remember one incident.
- I must have been, at that time, maybe 10, 11 years old,
- my brother eight.
- And when I went with my father, on one
- particular Jewish holiday, to the synagogue--
- What synagogue was it?
- That was the synagogue called Unterlindau, a German Orthodox
- synagogue.
- We were about to cross the street.
- But before we were reaching the sidewalk, a man,
- a workman pushing a cart hastened to reach my father,
- to give him a push with the push cart.
- Because he saw, obviously, that we were Jewish.
- And he must have been an antisemite.
- Other than that, I cannot remember any antisemitic act.
- But I was, after all, in a Jewish school,
- with Jewish teachers and a couple of non-Jewish teachers.
- So I personally have never had any antisemitic utterances
- or acts.
- Where were you in school when Hitler came to power?
- I wasn't in school.
- I had already entered the Wolfgang Von Goethe University
- and was a student, a medical student at that time.
- And in 1933, I had just made my preclinical exam
- and passed it, quite well.
- Could you tell us what happened after he came to power?
- It was March 1933.
- And the Easter vacation had just started
- when my father, after discussions with his Dutch
- and Belgian business partners or business relations,
- decided to make a business trip to Spain,
- to examine, there, the business possibilities.
- Since my father didn't speak any foreign languages
- and since he knew that French was required--
- at least French was required in Spain
- to converse with business people--
- he suggested I come along.
- I was delighted.
- I had never been abroad.
- So I was quite glad with this trip to foreign countries.
- We visited first Holland, then Belgium, and, from there,
- we went to Barcelona, Spain.
- About three or four weeks--
- three weeks after we had left Germany,
- we received a letter from my brother,
- wherein he told us of the first antisemitic excesses
- of the Hitler regime.
- He'd wrote that windows of the largest department
- store in Frankfurt had been smashed,
- that the Jewish owner had been forced to clean the sidewalk
- and was humiliated, while a crowd of cheering youngsters
- were standing there.
- My father had always had the conviction
- that Hitler was not merely uttering
- empty threats against Jews, but that the Nazis meant
- every word they said.
- My father was shattered by this letter.
- And my brother informed me, in that letter,
- also, that one of the new decrees
- had ordered all Jewish students to be thrown out
- of the universities and colleges in Germany.
- And that Jewish professors also had to leave universities.
- With that, my career was simply terminated.
- And we decided, at that time, that we would not
- go back to Germany anymore.
- Instead we asked our family members--
- in the first place, my mother and brother,
- who had stayed behind, but also my two married sisters,
- their husbands and children, to think of coming to Spain.
- And they all did.
- And by July 1933, I had no close relatives in Germany anymore.
- They were all, by that time, in Spain.
- And we had settled down and started a new business.
- However, I as well as my brother,
- who also was in medical school in Frankfurt,
- were unable to continue the medical career.
- We didn't speak Spanish.
- And no German diploma, high school and college,
- were accepted by the Spaniards, because the Germans didn't
- recognize any of the Spanish.
- So besides, our lives were rudely interrupted, not
- only culturally but also materially.
- So my brother and I, we had to help to make a living.
- So we gave up the career and became partners
- in my father's business.
- Then, in the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out.
- My father was not a strong person.
- He was asthmatic and had a stomach ulcer.
- A year later, 1937, it became rather intolerable
- for my father to stay in Spain.
- Food became scarce and living conditions, in general,
- had greatly deteriorated.
- So we decided, that is our whole family decided,
- that the time had come, that my mother and my father
- should leave that war-torn Spain.
- Bombing attacks had already been made on Barcelona
- by the Franco air force.
- But the question was where to go.
- By that time, it was already very
- difficult for Jews, with German passports, to go anyplace.
- Fortunately, we had a bank account in Holland,
- in Amsterdam, because of the business relationships that we
- had with Holland and Belgium.
- And we still had our original German passports
- from the pre-Hitler time, which allowed us to enter Holland
- without a visa.
- And so I believe it was early April 1937,
- I took my parents to Amsterdam, where we found a furnished room
- for them to live.
- After a couple of months, when they had settled down
- in Amsterdam, I returned to Spain
- and stayed there for another year,
- until my father became very seriously ill
- and was taken to a hospital in Amsterdam.
- When I got the news--
- when we got the news, I rushed to Amsterdam.
- And I stayed, there, with my parents.
- I did not return to Holland anymore.
- I'm sorry, I did not return to Spain anymore,
- except for a brief interval.
- The rest of your family remained in Spain?
- The rest of my family remained there until late 1937,
- when my two sisters, with their children, left for Belgium.
- So my brother and my two brother-in-laws
- remained in Spain.
- How did you make any money?
- It became more and more difficult in 1938
- and later on, the end of 1938, to conduct any business
- with Spain or from Spain.
- There was little to do.
- And I had plenty of free time on my hands.
- And I was looking for some friends,
- because I was very lonely.
- And somehow, I heard that a young man,
- who had been my brother's best friend, lived in Amsterdam.
- I found his address.
- We met.
- And he introduced me to another young man, approximately
- my age, who, as it turned out, lived only a block away
- from where I was living.
- So slowly, I made some friends.
- They introduced me-- one of them,
- Heinz Mona was his name, also from Frankfurt,
- from the same school, Philanthropin.
- He persuaded me to join a sport club, a Jewish sport club,
- Maccabi, Maccabi Amsterdam.
- By that time, it was already 1939, late fall.
- And he said to me, let's go to a Hanukkah--
- I think it was a Hanukkah evening, Hanukkah 1939--
- to play ping-pong.
- There I saw a young, very pretty girl, apparently or obviously
- also a member of that club, going around
- on a tray selling things--
- let's say chocolate bars and other items--
- to make money for the Zionist movement in Holland.
- She was to become, later, my fiancee, Dottie,
- as she was called in Holland.
- Mrs Ringel, could you tell me when and where you were born?
- Yeah, now comes the truth, huh?
- [LAUGHTER]
- No more lying.
- Yes, I was born in Amsterdam, Holland, in January 1920.
- What was your maiden name?
- Parfumuer.
- It's a French name but with Dutch origins.
- Way back, it must have come from a French part.
- Could you tell us something about your family?
- Yes.
- My parents were born in Holland, too,
- my father in the northern part, in the province of Friesland,
- town of Harlingen. It was a shipping town, lots of sailing
- ships in the beginning.
- Later other ships came into what we consider,
- now, a small harbor of Harlingen. And my father,
- as a boy, was fascinated by all these sail ships that came in
- from Denmark and England--
- mostly Denmark.
- And he learned Danish from the crew,
- when he was sitting there, in the harbor
- all the time, just trying to catch a glimpse of these ships.
- And so, as children, later, in Amsterdam, we
- were taken to the museum that specialized in everything that
- had to do with shipping, and not shipping so much as maritime,
- I think you would call it here.
- And your mother?
- And my mother was born in Amsterdam.
- And my grandparents came from Holland.
- What did your parents do for a living
- Or your father's business?
- My father had a business in filling for furniture,
- that included filling for seats in cars, taxis, airplanes,
- trains.
- So we had a wholesale business delivering
- to factories that made planes, trains, cars, and mattresses,
- and furniture, too.
- Where did you live?
- Amsterdam.
- No, specifically, what street?
- I was born and I have very faint recollections, now,
- because I was five years old when I moved from there,
- but I was born in Brouwersgracht.
- That was one of the canals in the old part of Amsterdam.
- And then, when I was five years old,
- we moved to the southern part of Amsterdam, Bonnstraat 56.
- When I was five years old.
- And we lived--
- Where was your father's place of business?
- That was on also one of the canals, Prinsengracht 532.
- Funny, I can say that only in Dutch.
- Was it a large operation?
- Yes, it was.
- There were four floors.
- The offices were downstairs.
- And we had three floors of stock of all kinds.
- How many people worked?
- Well, I would say five or six depending how busy we were.
- Tell me about your years growing up and school.
- Well, I had a very carefree childhood.
- I went to school in the neighborhood where I lived,
- just two minutes away from where I lived.
- Nicolaas Maesschool is the name of the school in the Nicolaas
- Maesstraat.
- And that was the elementary school.
- And I went to high school.
- That was called [DUTCH] in the same street as the other one.
- All very close to where I lived.
- But when I was 13 years old, we moved away from that area,
- and we stayed in the southern part.
- But it was about half an hour from school.
- So I needed a bicycle.
- And I drove myself back and forth to school.
- What street was that that you moved to?
- That was Zuider Amstellaan.
- The name has changed since, but, at the time,
- it was Zuider Amstellaan.
- After the war, they changed the name to Rooseveltlaan,
- honoring President Roosevelt.
- How many members were there in your family?
- Five, we were two brothers and myself and my parents,
- of course.
- And what happened after high school?
- After high school, for a short time,
- I worked in my father's office.
- And then I worked somewhere else.
- And I took classes in commercial correspondence typing
- and all kinds of office and administrative skills,
- shorthand and all that.
- And then the war broke out before I had a chance.
- Well, I did work in one or two offices after I left my father.
- But soon after that, the war broke out.
- And I was still working somewhere when that happened.
- Did you experience any antisemitism
- when you were growing up?
- Not really, except in high school, once.
- There was a young man.
- I must admit that he was the most stupid one of the class.
- Isn't nice to say that, but he really
- happened to be quite dumb.
- He happened to sit next--
- not next to me, behind me.
- And then when we talk after class [INAUDIBLE]
- to answer some questions.
- I heard him, say, oh, that's one of those.
- But at least she's pretty.
- So he was definitely referring to my being Jewish,
- because I knew he was connected with the NSB, which was
- the National Socialist Bund.
- I think that was the constellation.
- They were the ones who later collaborated with the Germans.
- All this was very shortly before the war started,
- before the invasion, the German invasion in Holland came.
- But that was the only thing.
- I never, never encountered any sign of antisemitism.
- Were you aware of Hitler's coming to power
- and what was happening in Germany?
- Oh, I was very much aware, since 1933, as young as I was.
- Because there were very heated and very excited
- conversations going on in the living room of my house.
- And it affected me a great deal.
- I couldn't get over the fact that innocent people, who
- happen to be born in a religion or in a race,
- had to be punished and persecuted for something
- they couldn't help.
- And I was very much affected by that.
- But that was still seven years before the invasion.
- And my father was very suspicious of the situation.
- He didn't trust it.
- And we, as children, didn't realize how good
- his insight was, really.
- And so he applied for a visa, for all of us,
- to America in 1937, I think.
- And the reason?
- In Holland, it was easier to get a visa
- to America than in some other countries.
- Apparently, because there were not that many applications.
- I think the visa came through within a year.
- But my father was not quite ready to go.
- And so we thought about it for a while.
- And the embassy, in Rotterdam, sent us some summonses
- to let us know that, if we don't use the visa within the year,
- they may expire.
- Well, we as children, of course, didn't
- feel like leaving our country and our school.
- And so we were against it.
- And my father was not too keen on the idea, himself,
- although he saw the need for it.
- But he was easily talked out of it.
- So we left the whole idea go.
- And the visa expired, unfortunately,
- with the result that, two years later, the German invasion
- came.
- And then we very badly wanted to get out, we couldn't anymore.
- Mr. Ringel, what happened after you
- met your wife, who, of course, at that point,
- was not your wife yet?
- No.
- No.
- I think you knew already.
- We became friendly.
- And we also were friendly with several other members
- of Maccabi.
- What year was this again?
- I'm talking now end of 1939, beginning of 1940.
- I was persuaded, again, by that same friend, Heinz Mona,
- to join the Maccabi tennis club.
- And he mentioned to me, by the way,
- the girl you met, at the time, at Maccabi ping-pong,
- is a member of the tennis club.
- And she is one of the best tennis players.
- That was a great incentive for me to join the tennis club.
- So in spring, April, May 1940, we
- met again, after an interval of maybe three or four months.
- And our friendship began, actually, from that time on.
- Because it so happened that I lived
- almost next door to the building where the family Parfumuer
- lived.
- Next block.
- Shortly after I had joined the tennis club,
- we formed a small group, consisting of perhaps seven
- or eight young people.
- And we started socializing.
- Then came May 10th, 1940, the German invasion.
- Before that time and shortly after,
- I tried desperately to get visa, for the United States or South
- America or any other country overseas I could think
- of-- to begin with, England, where, by that time,
- my brother had settled after he had left Franco's Spain.
- But to no avail.
- I couldn't get a visa anyplace.
- And there was nothing else to do but resign to the fact
- that now the Germans were there and to make the best of it.
- And we did.
- As paradoxical as it may sound, the second part of 1940,
- summer and fall, were the most pleasurable months
- I can remember in my whole life.
- Because I had a girlfriend, for the first time in my life.
- And friends we were close with met very often
- and had a wonderful time.
- But that ended as the year 1941 came around.
- Because by that time, the, let me call it,
- very carefully planned reticence of the Nazis,
- the German occupation forces, in treating
- the Jewish part of the Dutch population, changed.
- A Jewish council of the elders had been instituted in Holland.
- And the concentration of all the Dutch and other foreign Jews
- living in Holland had begun, concentration from sending all
- the Jews, who had been, since centuries, spread out
- over the whole country, was now going
- to be concentrated in the larger cities, especially Amsterdam.
- Amsterdam had a ghetto, a Jewish ghetto.
- Or let me correct myself, a certain part where
- mainly Jews lived.
- There were non-Jews, too.
- And incidentally, that is the part where Rembrandt lived
- and where, today, the Rembrandt house still
- exists as a kind of a museum in Amsterdam.
- The life, our life continued.
- We were restricted in our movements already.
- Specifically, how were you restricted?
- Restricted in the sense that we were not allowed anymore
- to go to movies, to any public buildings, like museums.
- No parks.
- No parks.
- No streetcars.
- No, the streetcar--
- I'm sorry, the streetcar came later.
- --came later.
- That came already end of 1941.
- But I'm still talking now of the beginning of 1941.
- We were still able to play tennis but only
- in a Jewish sporting club.
- We were not allowed to mingle with so-called Aryans
- any longer.
- Were you able to work at this point though?
- Work?
- Beginning of '41, yes.
- Don't you think?
- Yes, in the beginning of '41, it was still possible.
- Although, as far as I'm concerned,
- our business had stopped completely.
- Since we were depending on foreign countries,
- either imports, mainly, it was dead from the day
- on that the Germans had invaded Holland.
- How did you live?
- I beg your pardon?
- How did you live?
- Well, simply from savings and from the bank account.
- Without thinking of what would happen when, one day,
- that would be cut off and used up.
- But life in those days was on short-term.
- You didn't know anymore what was going
- to happen a month from then or two months or six months
- from then.
- We were living from day to day and were
- forced to live from day to day.
- Because, in the year 1941, one decree,
- Nazi decree after another was published.
- Generally published in the newspaper that
- the [NON-ENGLISH] as it was called.
- Jewish council.
- Jewish council, correct.
- And this paper was published to transmit,
- to the Jewish population of Holland,
- all the decrees with regard to Jews,
- that they were not allowed to do this and this and this
- and this.
- Now, as I mentioned before, we were still
- able to meet at the tennis court.
- And it was early June 1941.
- My girlfriend, Dottie, she had pneumonia at that time
- and could not participate.
- No, I'm sorry, let me correct myself.
- At that time, his name was Max Schlesinger, the other friend
- I had met from Frankfurt.
- He also had joined the Maccabi and tennis club.
- We both went to play tennis.
- On that particular morning, when we
- noticed that there was hardly any one of the other players
- there.
- There were a few girls from the central part of Amsterdam
- but not from the south.
- We were wondering about that, when suddenly I
- was paged at that sport club.
- And it was Dottie, on the phone, who
- gave me the message that there was
- a roundup of young Jewish men.
- How did you find that out?
- I'm not sure whether we still had telephone.
- Because I think they may have been taken away already
- by that time, as were many other things, like bicycles.
- And I may not tell you that in the right sequence.
- But eventually, that happened.
- Most of these warning messages, and that one, particularly,
- probably came from our neighbor, who
- was friendly with my mother.
- She was not Jewish.
- As a matter of fact, she was German,
- but a wonderful person married to a Dutchman.
- She probably gave me that message if I recall well.
- And my mother-in-law had heard it somehow, too.
- Or I gave her the message.
- I'm not sure about that anymore.
- But the next thing we know, that I was
- in touch with my mother-in-law.
- And she quickly went over to the tennis courts with clothes,
- I suppose--
- You know better what she was bringing--
- to get Dolf away from there and, perhaps, into safety.
- At that time, women and girls were not in danger yet.
- But I had the conviction.
- I was quite pessimistic, all the way through,
- ever since I heard what Germans were up to doing in Germany.
- I had no illusions.
- So I was quite pessimistic that that would happen.
- And of course, very soon afterwards, it
- did happen that girls were the next target
- and then middle aged and older people,
- then, finally, everybody.
- But anyway, my mother-in-law went to the tennis court.
- And Dolf will tell you what happened to him afterwards.
- What happened?
- Well, to begin with, let me correct my wife.
- She wasn't her mother-in-law yet.
- No, but she was eventually.
- She was to become.
- She was to become your mother-in-law.
- And she, as well as Max's mother,
- rushed to the tennis court, to bring us some clothes,
- because we had left that morning with simply tennis clothes.
- We did have our bicycles at that time.
- And Max had an address of a Gentile family living about 25
- to 30km kilometers outside Amsterdam.
- He suggested that we quickly jump on our bikes
- and make it out to that place.
- It's called Laren, a little town.
- And by that time, my mother and his mother had arrived.
- We took the clothes, went into some bushes,
- changed, jumped on our bicycles, and left for Laren.
- However, we had to cross the river flowing
- through Amsterdam, the Amstel.
- And we were deliberating for a second,
- shall we take the bridge, the main bridge over the Amstel
- or should we ride along the river to about three
- or four kilometers, where a small ferry could take you
- to the other side.
- For some reason, which I can't remember now anymore,
- we decided in favor of riding along
- the river for 10, 15 minutes, and then go across by a ferry.
- And that saved our lives.
- Because the SS had blocked the bridge, Berlage Bridge.
- And any Jewish-looking young man was stopped,
- and his identity card, with the big J in it,
- was enough for them to arrest him and hold him.
- Unfortunately, Heinz Mona, the young man
- who had introduced me, whom I had met,
- and he had introduced me to Maccabi,
- he was one of the many, many victims,
- who were caught at that time.
- In fact, 90% of all young men, members of that Maccabi tennis
- club, were arrested.
- And they were all killed in Mauthausen.
- They were deported to Mauthausen.
- And their parents, after a couple of months,
- received cards, with identical contents,
- that their son had died of pneumonia or tuberculosis
- or any other serious disease.
- They were all killed in Mauthausen.
- So that particular day, our life, for the first time,
- was saved by coincidence or whatever
- else one wants to call it.
- What happened when you got to the house
- of the Christian family?
- We were welcomed there and remained for three days,
- until it appeared that the roundup had ended
- and would not be renewed for the time being.
- I returned or we returned to Amsterdam.
- As soon as we returned, Max and I looked around for a place
- to hide.
- And that meant in a Gentile--
- in a part of the city, preferably not
- in the part where the more wealthy population lived,
- but amongst the workers' quarter of Amsterdam,
- which was in the western part of Amsterdam.
- We managed to rent a small room at the house
- of a widow, who lived there with her son, unmarried son.
- And from that day on, in the afternoon, when it got darker,
- we went to a bedroom, and we slept there.
- I cannot remember the reason why we thought, at that time,
- that the nights were the dangerous part for staying
- in home.
- It could have happened also during daytime.
- But for some odd reason, probably because most arrests,
- by the SS and the Gestapo, took place at night
- to hide it from the Gentile population.
- That may have persuaded us to leave
- our parental home, each late afternoon, after dinner.
- Did your wife know where you were?
- Yes, I know.
- Yeah.
- But I didn't go into hiding--
- I don't know if you want to know this already--
- until about a month later, when it
- became apparent that not just men but women
- were in the same kind of danger.
- So there were razzias in the intervals,
- between the time that Dolf went into hiding
- and when I started thinking about it or doing it.
- There were razzias in our street all during the day.
- Excuse me.
- Razzia is the word--
- A roundup.
- It's an Italian word that was used for the roundup.
- Oh, yeah.
- I'm sorry.
- We saw them out of our window.
- We saw them across the street.
- It was a very wide street.
- But we saw the trucks just going from house to house,
- ringing the bell, coming back with two, one, two, three,
- or more people, loading them into trucks.
- And we didn't need any more explanation.
- Of course, in the meantime, all kinds of stricter rules
- had taken place.
- And it wasn't only--
- I wasn't only the one who was pessimistic anymore.
- Everybody was.
- But not everybody was looking for a way out
- or had a place to hide.
- Some people thought about it too late.
- And others couldn't find any place.
- When that happened in our street,
- I contacted a young man, who lived downstairs.
- Not Jewish-- there were mixed families in the block
- and in our house--
- a very nice family.
- And he helped my younger brother.
- My older brother was not at home at the time.
- He helped my younger brother and me
- to get into the machine room, where the machines
- of the elevator were located.
- But nobody really was allowed to get in,
- and we had to go through the ceiling, through a--
- I don't know what you call it--
- an opening in the ceiling.
- It was really closed.
- But we knew there was that possibility of taking
- this square, large piece out.
- And he seemed to have known that there was a ladder upstairs,
- once the opening became a hole.
- And he took the ladder down.
- And two of us, my younger brother and I-- my brother
- was, at the time, 15 or 16 years old.
- He helped us up there and closed the hole in the ceiling again.
- And that's where we waited.
- We had a possibility of looking out, from that machine room,
- through a small hole, like in a ship,
- where you can see the ocean.
- And we saw the other side of the street.
- And we saw it they continued doing what they were doing.
- When they came to our side, we couldn't see it anymore.
- We heard, later, from my mother, that they
- had rang our doorbell, like they had done to all our neighbors.
- And they had asked my mother, don't you have children?
- And where are you children?
- She answered, I'm so worried about them.
- And she knew that we were up there.
- And she also knew where my older brother was at the time.
- She said, I'm so worried.
- I have no idea where they are.
- I wish I knew.
- And they searched the apartment.
- Couldn't find us.
- And at that time, middle aged or older people
- were not taken yet.
- And they left.
- When everybody was out of the street and the streets
- seemed quiet again, our friend, Dick Hutter that
- was his name, the one who helped us.
- He was about my age--
- he came back up.
- He opened the hole in the ceiling, got us out.
- My younger brother went, on his own,
- to a place where he hoped to be saved.
- It was in a hospital where my aunt
- was head of the household, a Jewish hospital.
- And he hoped to be safe there for the time being,
- because hospitals, at that time, were not attacked yet.
- Soon afterwards, that happened, too.
- But Dick walked me to the western part of Amsterdam,
- to the same place where Dolf had been hiding before
- and where he didn't hide anymore.
- Because he had, in the meantime, received a better address
- where to keep himself hidden.
- So I stayed there, I think, two days and two nights.
- And she made it clear--
- that's the same woman with a son, who was apparently
- slightly retarded.
- At least we had that impression--
- that she was either afraid or couldn't keep me anymore.
- And I found another solution.
- Or she, rather, was related.
- I forgot how the relationship was.
- Mrs Veitz, yes.
- The people--
- Her daughter.
- No, it wasn't her.
- Mrs. Holzberg's daughter.
- Mrs. Holzberg's daughter?
- Yeah.
- This older woman's daughter.
- The son lived with her, but the daughter
- was married and lived, also, in the western part of Amsterdam.
- Her husband had come to my parents house
- and offered, if I couldn't find another place,
- to keep me there for as long as I wanted--
- till the end of the war, as long as I wanted.
- So that was the next step.
- Mr. Ringel, why don't you pick up the Story
- Yes, let me go back to the event at the tennis court.
- Of course, after that, the Maccabi sport club
- was no longer able to continue.
- Besides, in the second half of 1941,
- the Nazi administration in Holland, as it were,
- took off their gloves.
- And it accelerated.
- The events accelerated.
- Jews were no longer allowed to use the streetcars.
- As Dottie mentioned, no telephones.
- They had been taken away, no radios of course.
- The restrictions became more and more,
- until we were put under a curfew.
- I believe, from 8:00 at night till 7:00 in the morning,
- Jews were not allowed to be in the streets.
- Towards the end of 1941, the situation for Jews
- had become extremely precarious.
- The businesses that had Jewish owners
- got administrators, sometimes Dutch Nazis, very often,
- the larger ones, German Nazis, who became the new owners.
- Bank accounts were blocked.
- And only certain small amounts of money,
- barely sufficient to keep a family alive, were allowed.
- All food, everything that you needed to live, actually,
- was on coupons.
- And then 1942 rolled around.
- And in spring 1942, Jews were ordered
- to wear the yellow star on the outermost piece of clothing.
- It had to be sewn on.
- By that time, it was clear to most Jews
- that something terrible was going to happen.
- I would like to go back a little to the late fall 1941,
- so the winter before.
- It must have been around September, October 1941, when
- a second cousin of mine, with whom I had no previous contact,
- came to visit my parents and me in our apartment,
- asking us to help him, financially,
- to escape from Holland to Switzerland.
- I questioned him as to how he thought to be
- able to get to Switzerland.
- And he gave me the name of that little place
- in the south-eastern part of Holland,
- where he would cross over to the Belgian--
- cross the Belgian-Dutch border, continued to Antwerp.
- And there, he gave me the name of the leader of one
- of the Jewish communities in Antwerp,
- who would provide him with a guide to non-occupied France.
- I made a mental note of the places and names
- he had given me.
- And I told it to my parents.
- I told it to Dottie and also to my friend Max's parents.
- And slowly, a plan developed, that Max and I
- should try to get also to Switzerland, to escape.
- Dottie was against it.
- She had the intuition.
- Well, there was a reason.
- You didn't mention that just the two of you
- were planning to go away not me, because he didn't
- see any danger for women yet.
- Not at all.
- Not only did I not see any danger for women,
- but, generally, it was thought, at that time,
- that all the measures of the Germans
- were directed against the men, the possible enemies of theirs.
- It turned out that Dottie's intuition and fear
- were absolutely correct and ours were false.
- But the plan was there.
- And before we left, we became officially engaged.
- Yeah, but you mentioned that I didn't leave with you.
- That's what I'm saying.
- We decided to leave alone, without you.
- And before we left, Dottie and I became engaged.
- My parents came over, went over to the Parfumuer apartment.
- And there was a kind of engagement, a small engagement
- party.
- Although we knew, at that time that,
- a marriage was not possible anymore.
- The rabbis had no longer the authority from the state
- to marry Jewish couples.
- But we didn't worry about that at the moment.
- No.
- And so the first days of December 1941,
- we traveled, by train, to the southern part of Holland,
- crossed over into Belgium, exactly
- the same way as my second cousin had told me.
- And we reached Antwerp without any difficulty.
- What was the name of the town you crossed over
- from into Belgium?
- Putten, a tiny little village.
- The border between the two countries
- ran approximately through the center of town,
- one side was Belgian, one side was Dutch.
- I had an aunt living in Antwerp, and that's
- where we went, next day, to stay with her.
- Next day, we went to the main synagogue in Antwerp.
- We were introduced to the--
- I think he was the president of the congregation.
- We told him we would like to be taken, by a guide,
- to non-occupied France.
- And he said that would be possible.
- It will cost you so and so much.
- We had enough money with us.
- However, one of the transports had just left--
- the transport consisted of the guide and two or three people--
- had just left, and it would take about two or three
- days until he's back.
- So we stayed in Antwerp, mainly in the house of my aunt.
- And three days later, we presented ourselves, again,
- to the synagogue.
- We noticed that a few men were there.
- Amongst them, also, the president
- of the congregation, and they were discussing things
- rather excitedly.
- So we said, we are back again.
- When can you help us to get a guide?
- And he answered, don't you know what happened yesterday?
- We were astonished.
- We didn't know anything.
- He said, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
- That is in Hawaii.
- And the United States, since last night,
- is at war with Germany.
- Everything is in an uproar.
- We don't know what will happen now with non-occupied France.
- There is not a chance that a guide will now
- leave with the refugees to non-occupied France.
- Try again in a week, then we'll see how the situation is.
- We went back to my aunt.
- We discussed-- Max and I discussed the situation.
- And I must admit that, while we were fleeing,
- I had already remorses that I had left without my fiance.
- The words she had said to me somehow remained in my mind.
- She said, I'm afraid we will never see each other again,
- when I kissed her goodbye.
- So I said, Max, are you thinking the same that I am thinking?
- He said, I believe I do, that the best for us
- is to go back home.
- I said, yes.
- And the next day, we went back, exactly the same route
- we had taken before.
- And suddenly, I was standing in front of my fiance, who almost
- fainted when she saw me back.
- It was really incredible.
- People later on said to me, that was God's will.
- Because who is so crazy?
- Who was so crazy to be already in Belgium, having crossed
- already one border, and being in touch with someone who
- could help you escape, to go back
- and into Nazi-occupied Holland.
- Well, we did.
- I never regretted it.
- Why did you decide to do that?
- We prepared.
- If I say, we, I mean, again, Max and myself.
- He knew, somehow, from dealings, a gentleman,
- a Dutch businessman, who was a stockbroker.
- He lived in the central part of Amsterdam on one of the canals.
- He lived alone in a patrician house,
- where he had his offices and also his living quarters.
- We were introduced to him by the family in Laren,
- where we had found refuge after we fled from the tennis court.
- His name was Lex Wellensiek from an old Dutch family,
- Protestant family.
- He invited us to come and see him.
- We asked him the question.
- If the situation should become so critical
- that we can no longer live in our house, in our homes,
- would you be willing to let us in, in your house?
- He said, yes.
- I knew about it.
- I knew why you were coming to us, to me.
- And you are welcome to come here.
- I will show you my attic.
- You can live there, in peace, as long as you want.
- So I ask him, Mr. Wellensiek, as it looks now,
- the war may last for another two, three, or four years--
- God knows how long.
- Won't that be much too much a burden and danger for you,
- that two Jewish young men are living here?
- He said, I thought about it before you came.
- This is my decision.
- When you come, you will stay with me, here,
- if you wish, until the end of the war.
- No matter what the consequences may be for me.
- Don't you worry about it.
- So we were prepared.
- We were prepared, because we knew
- that it would be impossible for us to hide out in that room
- that we had rented, in the western part of Amsterdam.
- The woman was elderly.
- She was unable to cook meals for us.
- And she was very jittery and afraid.
- And altogether, not a place where we could stay.
- As I mentioned before, in April, we had to wear the Jewish star.
- And on July 5th, 1942, suddenly, I, my friend, Max, and--
- sorry, German-born Jewish men and women, under the age of 40,
- got a card from the from the Gestapo demanding or ordering
- those people to appear by the end of that week--
- I think it was the 10th of July--
- at the central station, in Amsterdam,
- with a knapsack containing only some food and one or two pieces
- of clothing, for Arbeitseinsatz, which
- means for "forced labor" in Germany.
- As soon as I received this card, I got together with Max.
- And we decided the time has come now
- to go and hide out at Mr. Wellensiek's
- apartment in that attic.
- I told Dottie of what had happened, that I had the card.
- And it was, at that time, that I urged her to,
- if something should happen, if she should also
- get such a card, that she should go and hide at the address
- that we had formerly had.
- I took off.
- Max left on his own.
- And I took off the star, ripped it off from my clothes,
- from my coat.
- And walked to the house of Mr. Wellensiek.
- Max had already arrived.
- And we entered the attic.
- Why do you think Mr. Wellensiek was [INAUDIBLE]??
- At that time, I was unaware of what Mr. Wellensiek was doing
- other than being a businessman and the secretary
- of the Dutch Reformed schools in the Netherlands.
- That much we knew.
- His other activities were unknown.
- Max and I got--
- we learned it.
- After about a week that we were in hiding at Mr. Wellensiek's
- house, when he expected visitors late at evening,
- after closing hours of the offices,
- he prepared us, that two gentlemen were coming.
- And he informed us, at the same time,
- that one of the two gentlemen was
- the founder of an underground newspaper, Vrij Nederland, Free
- Netherlands, and that he would have certain dialogues
- and discussions with these two men.
- He also revealed that his house, [DUTCH] 18,
- was very often the meeting place for the underground resistance
- movement, that Mr. van Randwijk, the founder of the newspaper,
- had formed.
- We never took part in any of these discussions, of course.
- However, he introduced us.
- Mr. Wellensiek introduced us to these two gentlemen.
- They knew of our existence and knew
- that we were in that house.
- How long did you stay there?
- We stayed until the 27th of September of that same year.
- My brother-in-law, Dottie's elder brother,
- had decided, after he received such a card, around middle
- of July, to try to flee to Switzerland together
- with another friend of his.
- I didn't know about it, because I was hidden.
- However, as Dottie told you before,
- that she had also left her parental home
- after the Germans, the SS or the Gestapo had searched her house.
- So I knew that she was now--
- she was now in Amsterdam, west, hidden.
- That was with a family.
- I didn't tell anything about that yet.
- Because the circumstances were quite different there.
- Yeah.
- I knew that she was hidden ahead.
- I knew her address.
- So we were in correspondence.
- By letter.
- Through the mail, using, always, our friend, Wellensiek.
- Whatever we wrote, whatever I wrote,
- he put in one of his own envelopes
- and mailed it to the gentleman or to the family, where Dottie
- was living and vice versa.
- Of course, our names were never mentioned.
- And our only contact consisted through the mail.
- Mrs Ringel, how did you get to this Family
- Well, I think I mentioned before that the woman--
- The daughter--
- It was the daughter of the old lady where I had been two days,
- and who couldn't do it any longer--
- was married and had two boys, two sons.
- They were at the time, I think, about 12 and 14 years old--
- not quite, 10 and 12.
- And they were, in a way, a danger.
- Because they went to school every day.
- And it was just to be hoped that they would never,
- by mistake or on purpose, for whatever reason--
- they could be mad at the parents--
- and do something nasty or for whatever reason.
- But the father was quite a strict man.
- And he had enough hold over, authority over his sons
- that nothing ever happened.
- And it's really a miracle, come to think of the fact
- that, after I left, and I was there only a few months,
- my parents-in-law, my future parents-in-law,
- came to live there until the end of the war.
- And neither one of the two boys ever
- gave away the secret to their friends,
- to neighbors, to their teachers in school.
- But they continued living a sort of a normal life.
- But this was a couple.
- And as I said, the daughter was the daughter
- of the woman where I was at first.
- He worked in a factory, somewhere,
- like just a blue collar worker, but a very good-hearted, fine
- man, who really did this out of love
- for humanity, to do something good.
- Because he hated the Germans almost as much as the Jews
- hated them.
- I had a little bit of trouble.
- He sometimes stayed away from work.
- His wife always went out to find food, which was already
- getting quite scarce.
- She took her bicycle and went out into the country
- to go to farmers and collect as much food
- as she could to provide for all of us.
- On two such occasions that she, again, went away,
- he stayed away from work, pretending, probably,
- to his boss, that he was sick.
- And he became a little bit too friendly.
- But times were different, from what they are now.
- So I showed him that I really liked him a lot
- but was not willing to go into any affair
- or whatever he had in mind.
- So thank goodness, it stopped.
- There was no guarantee, of course,
- that it wouldn't start again.
- Because this was already towards the end of the time
- that I was going to be there.
- I didn't know, at the time, yet, that I
- wasn't going to be there the whole rest of the war.
- But by corresponding with Dolf, back and forth,
- we decided that his position, where he and Max were, as well
- as mine, for different reasons, were really too
- difficult and impossible to stay there for a long time.
- So we decided, and we organized, by letter, back and forth,
- writing always through the name of the man
- where we were hidden.
- But the letters were never opened by anybody else.
- We received them always unopened.
- And we planned and worked out a plan,
- by mail, to get together and, immediately after that,
- leave Holland via an address that my brother, who
- in the meantime had gone to Switzerland.
- He had succeeded and left me with one name and a description
- of a man who could bring us over the Dutch-Belgian border.
- So that was the beginning of a possible escape for us.
- For the rest, we didn't really know.
- We were hoping and depending on that man
- giving us more information and possibilities how to continue.
- Because you could not be sure, from one minute
- or from one day to the next.
- And now, come to your spot.
- When did you leave?
- The exact date was September 27th, 1942.
- It was, by that time, extremely difficult and extremely
- dangerous for Jews, and for anyone else,
- to try to cross borders.
- Because they were heavily guarded by the Germans.
- We made use of the address that Eddy, my brother-in-law,
- had left behind with his parents and that Dottie
- had given me by mail.
- I discussed it with Max.
- We noticed that the meetings in the house,
- where we were living, became more numerous.
- In addition, the secretary, Mr. Wellensiek's secretary,
- as it turned out, was not simply his secretary,
- but she was also his girlfriend.
- Maybe 20 years younger than he-- he was an elderly gentleman,
- already.
- And she became rather unfriendly towards us.
- We noticed, quite clearly, that our staying in that house
- was an impediment for her, for whatever reasons, maybe
- for the safety of Mr. Wellensiek,
- or because she had no occasion, anymore,
- to be together with him at night.
- For whatever reason, we noticed that she
- wished we weren't there.
- But Max and I also came to the conclusion
- that [DUTCH] 18, being a meeting place for probably the most
- important resistance group in the country,
- made it very, very dangerous for us, in the first place,
- but also for Wellensiek.
- Any day, the Gestapo could invade the house and find us.
- And that would be the end.
- So we became disenchanted with our situation.
- And we were convinced, we will never
- be able to live through this till the end of the war.
- And that started, as Dottie already mentioned it,
- the correspondence between us.
- And we approached Mr. Wellensiek.
- After we had come to an agreement,
- then we faced Mr. Wellensiek, in the evening,
- when he took us down from the attic into his living room.
- We told him we have decided, all three of us, Max and I
- and Dottie, who he knew where she was hidden,
- to try to make it to Switzerland or to non-occupied France
- in any case.
- Would you be willing, we asked Mr. Wellensiek, become
- our go between, to approach that smuggler in Breda,
- that is a city in southern Holland,
- and prepare everything for us?
- He said, of course, if this is what you decided,
- I will help you in any way I can.
- And he did.
- He contacted the man.
- He came to Amsterdam.
- He met Mr. Wellensiek.
- He told him.
- He knew, of course, of Eddy.
- He told him how much money was required-- a quite big sum
- of money to take us, three of us, to Lyon,
- in non-occupied France.
- He needed pictures, passport pictures of ours,
- because we were to get false Belgian identity
- cards, which would allow us to travel through Belgium, up
- to Paris.
- A date was arranged, as I mentioned, September 27th,
- that we should take the train up to Breda.
- In Breda, he would be at the railroad station,
- with three bicycles.
- And he would take us to a farm not far from the border.
- When the 27th arrived, it was a Sunday.
- Max went to meet with his parents.
- I left to see my parents, who, in the meantime,
- had been forced to leave their house, too,
- and also took up residence in Mr. Veitz's house,
- where Dottie had been living already.
- So they shared this little, small apartment, now,
- with the family of four, my parents, and Dottie.
- There, I met my parents.
- And Dottie and I took leave from my parents.
- And we went to the Jewish hospital
- in the southern part of Amsterdam, CIZ, Centraal
- Israelitisch Ziekenhuis, in Amsterdam,
- where we took leave from Dottie's parents and aunt
- and, perhaps, her younger brother.
- I have no recollection anymore, but he was there, too.
- All that, naturally, without this yellow star,
- the Jewish star, and using public transportation.
- We knew that we were taking a risk.
- But from that moment on, once we had made up our mind
- that we are fleeing, we knew we are playing with our lives.
- It is a roulette.
- We had to do it.
- And we did it.
- Max went his own way to the central station
- and had arranged, with Mr. Wellensiek,
- that he would also meet at the central station
- and would buy the ticket for Max.
- While Mr. Veitz, on his own, also went to the station
- to meet the two of us, Dottie and me.
- Tell them who Mr. Veitz is.
- Separately.
- Mr. Veitz--
- The man where I was.
- Yes.
- Let me call him, the landlord, where
- now my parents were housed.
- He had bought tickets for us to Breda.
- And each of us got the ticket, surreptitiously,
- from Mr. Veitz, a short goodbye, and we
- went towards the train, met in the same compartment,
- and road to Breda.
- Or let me correct myself, it wasn't Breda.
- It was the city of Tilburg--
- much smaller than Breda.
- We arrived without any incident.
- Excuse me, we were sitting in different compartments,
- I think.
- We were not all three sitting in the same compartment.
- I'm not sure about that.
- It is quite possible what you say.
- But we arrived in Tilburg.
- Across this little station, we saw a man standing there
- with three bicycles.
- So we knew that that was our man.
- We crossed over.
- He simply said, get on the bike.
- I will lead you.
- And we drove.
- We rode for perhaps 30, 40 minutes,
- until we came to a small road.
- We didn't know where the road was leading to.
- We were in the middle of the country.
- And we saw a farm.
- He said, here we are.
- Let's get into the farm.
- Then he said, I'm going to instruct you, now,
- what you have got to do.
- You will be fed here.
- And you will wait until dark.
- A young man will come on a bicycle.
- His name is Jean, a Belgian.
- And he will take you over the border.
- I give you, here, the identity cards.
- Sit down.
- Use the time to learn, by heart, your name, your new name.
- The birth dates are the same, the real ones of you.
- But you must be familiar, now, with all the data
- that are on this card.
- What did you have with you, clothing?
- A satchel, I had a satchel.
- And you had a briefcase.
- I had a large briefcase and so had Max.
- Unfortunately, what happens perhaps once in 50 years,
- it was a very warm September.
- And the sun was shining brightly.
- And we were dressed in winter clothes.
- We had heavy overcoats and heavy clothes,
- because we were going towards the fall and winter, which
- is nasty, cold, and windy, generally, but not in 1942.
- So that was all we had, plus money, quite large sums
- for that time.
- Because we didn't know how long it will take us
- until we reach official representation
- of the Dutch government in London,
- the government in exile, as it was called.
- There, they, we hoped will help us further.
- We had to pay him the full amount to that smuggler.
- He left.
- And after dark, it may have been about 10 o'clock or so
- at night, there was a knock.
- And there was a young man, standing.
- And he told us to follow him.
- He instructed us to stop and to throw ourselves down
- if he whistles.
- Because he said, sometimes we may meet people.
- I don't want anyone to see you.
- He didn't say anything of Germans.
- We did not expect to be.
- We were totally-- we felt totally safe
- as long as he was guiding us.
- And he did.
- We marched through the dark night.
- You know, of course, that practically all Europe
- was blacked-out, no lights anywhere.
- So we followed him.
- And we marched, perhaps, an hour and a half or so.
- At that time, we heard some noises, kind of music.
- And he waited for us.
- When we reached him, he said, you are already in Belgium.
- We have crossed the border.
- And what you hear are sounds coming
- from a bar restaurant that is about 100 yards from here.
- I will lead you to a shed that belongs to that restaurant.
- And I want you to stay there until all these visitors,
- in that shed, have left for the night.
- The curfew starts at midnight, because it was a Sunday.
- It was pitch dark in that shed.
- We were sitting there for perhaps half an hour
- and had become very restless, because it took so long.
- Then we heard the noises dying down.
- And a few minutes later, he came,
- took us into that restaurant.
- We had something to eat there.
- And then the owner said, I have prepared
- some blankets and a pillow.
- Lie down and sleep a few hours.
- And Jean told us, I will pick you up,
- tomorrow morning, at 7 o'clock.
- Please be ready by that time.
- We ask him where will you take us?
- He said, you have to go to the other part of Belgium,
- all across.
- We go first to Antwerp, from Antwerp to Brussels, there
- we change trains.
- And I take you to a place that is by the name of Menen,
- M-E-N-I-N. There, the border between Belgium and France runs
- straight through the town of Menen.
- What happened once you got over the Belgian border?
- The guide took us to a shed, which was pitched up,
- and said stay here until I come back
- and tell you that it's all right to enter the restaurant,
- or the bar, actually.
- And we found ourselves in a place
- where we couldn't even see our own hand in front of us.
- It may have taken half an hour, maybe 45 minutes,
- until the noise that we heard coming from maybe 100 yards
- away died down.
- Not long after that, our guide, Jean, returned, and said,
- now, follow me.
- He took us to that little house where the bar and restaurant
- was.
- We entered there was the Belgian guy there.
- And he greeted us.
- And apparently he knew all about us.
- We ask him where are we, actually?
- He said, you are now in [PLACE NAME],,
- a village just across the Belgian border, in Belgium.
- We knew already that we had we would
- have to take a streetcar to the first city or town,
- from where we would take a train to Antwerp,
- change trains in Antwerp to Brussels, and then
- from Brussels on to a place where the French border crosses
- through the middle of the town, by the name of Menin
- in French, Menen in Dutch.
- The owner of the bar told us-- they
- brought us some blankets and pillows, and said,
- you can lie down here.
- It was in one of the corners of the main room.
- You can sleep here, pass the night here,
- and Jean will return tomorrow to take you to Antwerp.
- Jean left and said, I'll be back at 8:00 in the morning.
- Please be ready.
- He returned the next morning, after we'd
- had a short breakfast, and we continued our trip.
- The streetcar was not far from that house.
- We got to Antwerp without any incident, which
- took us to the central station.
- We boarded the train, which was very crowded,
- because it was Monday.
- Were there German soldiers around?
- We didn't see-- we saw perhaps soldiers, but no SS or--
- No Gestapo.
- --or Gestapo.
- People out to catch you.
- Just soldiers.
- Yeah.
- We got to Brussels, changed in Brussels.
- We again saw some uniformed Germans there,
- but the trains were not checked.
- We felt secure by having Belgian identity cards,
- so we were not actually worried or any kind of anxiety.
- What date was this when you got to Brussels?
- That was now the--
- 28th.
- 28th--
- 28th of September--
- Correct.
- 28th of September.
- --1942.
- Right.
- We reached Brussels, changed trains.
- It took us almost all day to travel
- from the one side of Belgium, the northeast,
- to the southwest.
- We passed Ghent, or Gand, and Courtrai--
- Courtrai, or Kortrijk.
- These places I knew from before.
- And towards the evening, we reached Menen.
- Jean took us through that little town to a small hotel,
- and we got in there, and he registered.
- We didn't speak a word.
- He did everything for us.
- He spoke to the owner of the hotel,
- registered us, the three of us.
- And then he turned to us and said, I'm leaving now.
- I stay here with my relatives.
- I don't want to become too known here.
- So use you will be--
- everything is paid for you, and you will be sleeping here.
- And I come tomorrow again at 7:00 to pick you up from here.
- Well, we had no suspicion at all that it would not be so.
- We went to bed and got up very early next morning,
- came down to have breakfast.
- Must have been 6:30 or so.
- And 7 o'clock passed, but Jean wasn't there.
- It got 8:00, and we became restless.
- By 9 o'clock we not only were restless.
- We were highly uncomfortable.
- And it was clearly visible to others
- that we were uncomfortable.
- I approached, or one of us approached the owner
- and ask him, do you know why Jean hasn't come yet?
- He said, I don't know Jean.
- I have seen him for the first time in my life
- yesterday, when he came with you.
- Who is he?
- So we said, he's a friend of ours,
- and he is to accompany us to Paris.
- We said Paris, because the Belgian identity card allowed
- us to travel up to Paris--
- not further.
- So we could say that without endangering ourselves.
- So we still waited.
- A man who was having breakfast together with us
- suddenly came over to us, and he said to us,
- I noticed that you people have Dutch accent.
- You speak Dutch.
- You must be from Holland.
- I said, yes, that's correct.
- I assume you are trying to get to non-occupied France.
- I said, no, that's not the case.
- We are going to Paris to visit relatives.
- And we are waiting for our friend to come.
- He completely ignored my answer.
- He said, if you want to, I can bring you to Lyon,
- and you would be there by tomorrow morning.
- Again, we thanked him, but we were not sure
- whether this man could be--
- was a good or bad Belgian.
- So by now, we not only were sure that Jean had abandoned us,
- but that our staying any longer was quite dangerous.
- So we got up and left.
- Where'd you go?
- We had no idea.
- No place.
- Just out into the street.
- You tell now how you came to--
- please, continue now.
- [INAUDIBLE] et cetera.
- I think you do better.
- Because you remember the details better.
- All right.
- Sorry.
- We were--
- I'll fill in, if that's OK.
- Sure.
- We were wandering the streets, through the streets of Menen,
- which was much larger than we had expected to.
- We didn't know where to go.
- We may have walked for perhaps half an hour,
- an hour, maybe, in circles, just to keep on walking, discussing
- all kinds of plans.
- Should we return to Amsterdam?
- We said that doesn't make sense at all.
- Dottie said, because we are-- then we are running exactly
- the--
- or more of a risk to be caught than if we
- try to find a solution here.
- But why?
- How can we find a solution?
- Suddenly, Dottie stopped, and she said, wait a minute.
- The card that my parents had received
- from Eddie, her brother, from Switzerland,
- didn't the card mention the following?
- I passed through Menen, and I met that nice man, Josh--
- the guy with the jewelry all over him.
- Lots of rings--
- Lots.
- --of jewelry on this hands.
- [CROSS TALK]
- Of course, we didn't know any such person,
- but my brother was probably thinking of the possibility
- that someday we may follow his footstep, in his footsteps,
- and perhaps could use him or find him somehow.
- So we looked out and thought now he
- was going to look for someone like that,
- like a needle in a haystack.
- By that time we had reached the main street,
- and the main street was crawling, as it were,
- with uniformed German and Belgian Nazis.
- So we figured it is much better if we get off the main street.
- We saw what is called, in French, patisserie.
- Patisserie.
- Pastry shop.
- Pastry shop, and a café.
- We entered that.
- There was a Flemish-looking woman alone in that store.
- We entered and ordered something.
- And that lady looked quite confidence-inspiring to us.
- So I believe I approached her and ask her
- in French whether she would be willing to help us.
- And I told her we come from Amsterdam, from Holland,
- and we are trying--
- we are going to Paris, but our guide who was to take us
- has disappeared.
- Do you by any chance know anyone, a man here in town?
- His name is Josh.
- Josh is a first name, in French.
- By the name of Josh, who is apparently
- known for the lots of jewelry this man
- is wearing on his hands and fingers.
- She said, no, I don't.
- But if you go up main street, to the second pub
- on the same side, the owner of that pub,
- he knows practically everyone in town.
- He may be able to help you.
- But remember, I said the second pub, not the first one.
- We decided that I would leave and try
- to find that mysterious Josh, who
- must have had some kind of connection
- with my brother-in-law because there was a purpose.
- There was a-- intentionally, he mentioned that name
- and the place, apparently thinking
- that if we want to flee, that we could use that man.
- That could have been his only reason.
- I ignored the first pub.
- When I passed it I saw it was crowded with Belgian Nazis, all
- in their black uniforms.
- I got to the second one, set down in a corner,
- ordered a beer, and motioned the owner, who came over to me.
- And then I said to him, we have lost a friend of ours
- here in town.
- We don't know where he is.
- And we have got to go to Paris.
- But I have to give a message to a man by the name of Josh.
- He is known for wearing a lot of jewelry.
- I don't know his last name.
- Could you help us?
- Could you help me locate this man?
- He smiled and said, you must mean
- Josh Creupelandt, because that is
- one who wears a lot of jewelry.
- And he said it's about 10 minutes walk.
- I was elated.
- I quickly left and reached the house.
- He wasn't home, but his wife let me in.
- And she said, wait a few minutes.
- He is on an errand.
- He will be soon back.
- That "soon back" took almost 45 minutes.
- And I became not only nervous, but extremely, extremely
- agitated, because I knew that Dottie and Max were
- waiting in that café, not knowing
- what had happened to me.
- I could have been arrested.
- And I was afraid that they may get into panic,
- and leave, and then where would we meet again?
- Finally, Josh Creupelandt walked in.
- I quickly told him the whole story.
- I had nothing to lose anymore.
- Besides, I knew from Eddie that this man apparently
- can be trusted.
- I said, do you remember Eddie Parfumeur.
- He said, of course I know.
- Where is he?
- I said, he is in Switzerland.
- Oh, wonderful.
- Then I told him what has happened to us.
- I said, can you take us to Lyon?
- He reflected a minute, and then he said, yes, I could.
- It will cost you each 10,000 francs.
- You have to mention that Lyon was in non-occupied France.
- Yeah, I believe I--
- He said before.
- I believe I mentioned that before, at the beginning,
- that our goal was to reach non-occupied France, Lyon,
- where we would find a representative
- of the Dutch government.
- Did you have that kind of money?
- I said to him, we have paid the other guy already
- more than half what we took along.
- We don't have that much anymore.
- Well, in short, we agreed on half the sum-- that is,
- 15,000 Belgian francs--
- for taking us to Leon.
- He said, half?
- I will take you to Paris.
- In Paris you will stay for three days,
- until my colleague picks you up.
- I will get in touch with him.
- I have my own ways of communication.
- Francois will call for you and take you to Lyon.
- To Francois you will have to pay the other half of the money.
- I said, OK, that's fine now.
- Please, I have to leave.
- Where do I meet you?
- He said, take your friend and your fiancée and your friend.
- He come back right away.
- I rushed to the café.
- And when I entered, I found Dottie in terribly excited.
- And that is really an understatement.
- She was all alone.
- Max wasn't there.
- I said, what happened.
- Where's Max?
- She said, he went to look for you.
- I didn't--
- Ready?
- OK.
- I entered the café, and saw Dottie
- sitting alone, and terribly excited,
- which is an understatement.
- She was almost in panic.
- And rightfully so, because she was now all alone.
- I said, where's [Max.
- She said he left to look for you, and I was against it,
- but he was panicky, and he left me alone here.
- So I said then the only thing--
- she asked me, did you find that Josh?
- I said, yes, I did, and we have to go there immediately.
- But first I have to look for Max.
- At that, Max returned, to our great relief.
- I said, for god's sakes, why did you leave,
- and how could you look for me?
- You didn't know where I was.
- I could have been arrested.
- And then you leave Dottie alone, then you are alone
- and she is alone.
- That was a very dumb thing to do.
- He said, well, I didn't know anymore what to do,
- and I said, to which bar did you go?
- He said, to the first one.
- I opened the door and I saw all these black uniform Belgians,
- and I quickly left.
- I said, you could have caused all three of us
- to be now in German hands.
- But quickly, let's go.
- I tell you the story why.
- We thanked the Belgian lady, and we rushed to Josh,
- and I told him what I have been arranged.
- When we got to Josh, he said, rest here for a minute.
- Catch your breath.
- Offered us some wine, et cetera.
- Then I will take you still tonight
- over the French border, because the border guard is
- someone I know quite well.
- And you won't even have to talk to him.
- After about half an hour we left the house.
- He took us through side streets.
- And suddenly, we reached a street
- where there was a barrier across the street.
- He said, this is the French border.
- There was a little--
- what is it called?
- A guard house.
- He walked over to that man, whispered to him,
- took our three identity cards along, showed it to the men.
- The barrier went up.
- We walked through.
- He said, now you are in France, in occupied France.
- Again, we walked for maybe 10, 15 minutes.
- And we stopped in front of a house.
- He rang the bell.
- A man opened.
- And the two greeted each other like old friends.
- They were relatives, by the way.
- And he said, here I have three friends.
- I would like them to stay here overnight.
- Please give them dinner and a room,
- and I pick them up tomorrow morning.
- So he said, please be ready, early, by 8 o'clock.
- I pick you up and take you to--
- I myself take you to Paris.
- What town were you in at this point?
- Now we were in French Menen.
- It's the same name, but it's the French side
- and the Belgian side.
- The next morning, he took us to the station.
- Had a railroad station, that is.
- We took a local train.
- In about an hour we were in--
- wait a minute.
- I have to think what the name of the city is.
- Luik.
- Liege.
- Liege.
- I believe so.
- Liege is right, but I don't know if he went through there.
- I don't think he did.
- No, no.
- It was a-- well it may come back to me.
- It's in northwestern part of France,
- close to the Belgian border.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- No, no, no.
- We were already in France.
- There Josh said to us, stay close to me,
- because this train will be very crowded.
- That is the train that takes workmen to Paris.
- They commute from here.
- Indeed, it was not only crowded, but we had even some difficulty
- getting into the train.
- We managed to be in the same compartment.
- We traveled for about two hours and reached Paris.
- All three of us were elated that now we
- were in that big city, Paris.
- I knew it, Paris, quite well.
- Dottie and Max went there for the first time in their lives.
- But while we were crossing the train station,
- moving towards the exit, first the guide, Josh, behind him,
- Max, then Dottie, and I as last one,
- I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.
- I froze and swirled around, and I was
- looking at a French gendarme.
- I had my briefcase stuffed with our clothing, and other--
- Your clothes.
- I beg your pardon?
- Your clothes.
- My clothes.
- We each had one.
- Yeah, my clothes and other paraphernalia in there.
- And the gendarme said to me, in French,
- may I see this bag of yours?
- Please open it.
- I opened it, and he went inside with his hands--
- both hands.
- And he said, bon, merci.
- In the meantime, Max and Luke and I were ahead of Dolf,
- and we looked back, and all of a sudden
- we see that he was stopped by a man in uniform.
- And we thought this is it.
- That's the end of it.
- What are we going to do?
- Go back to him, talk to him?
- Or we just pretend not to know him and continue walking?
- Just try to keep an eye on him?
- So we thought this was really the end of--
- What did you do?
- And we slowly walked on, and tried to, corner of our eye,
- to see what was happening.
- And we saw that he was-- that Dolf was opening his briefcase.
- And apparently we were hoping that it was just
- a matter of checking what he had with him.
- But it looked-- when you see a uniform,
- and you were used to all these German uniforms-- see,
- we weren't even sure what the French uniform looked like.
- And also, we didn't know how far the French
- were to be trusted, which they were not.
- But it all ended well.
- There was nothing in his briefcase
- that was objectionable.
- And he closed it, and Dolf followed.
- But it was a few minutes of terror for us,
- and I'm sure for Dolf just as much.
- Sure.
- Josh told us that they are looking for--
- what do you call it-- food, all kind of smuggled food
- from outside Paris.
- That's what they did, fortunately.
- Josh took us by a metro--
- that is the subway in Paris--
- to Montmartre, which I could say is the red-light district
- of Paris.
- Very famous.
- Infamous.
- Or infamous.
- Both.
- We got off there, and Place de Clichy, the heart
- of Montmartre.
- He guided us through some side streets,
- and stopped in front of a strange-looking, illuminated,
- with an illuminated sign, neon light sign, Hotel Eden--
- Eden.
- The Eden Hotel.
- Well.
- Paradise.
- It was a, more or less, a brothel.
- Josh took us in there, and a woman,
- a French woman, elderly French woman, heavily made up,
- greeted him like a lost girlfriend,
- which apparently she was.
- And he told-- he whispered to her,
- and she greeted us very warmly, assigned two rooms to us,
- and said, my children, you can stay here,
- and you will be safe here.
- We paid Josh then and there half of the agreed amount.
- He left us and said it will take three days until Francois will
- come to pick you up from here.
- He is now in non-occupied France,
- and he will return after tomorrow.
- Then he will accompany you to Lyon.
- So he left, and we were on our own now.
- We went out.
- We felt so secure that after we had been fed,
- we went we went to the boulevard.
- It's very strange how you can feel secure just because you're
- in another country, as if the fact
- that nobody knows you there gives you more security.
- But that was, in my case, at least, another factor.
- In Holland I definitely looked Jewish.
- I had dark hair, and somewhat curly.
- And I knew I looked Jewish in Holland.
- But in France, all of a sudden everybody had dark hair,
- and I felt less Jewish than the French who were not.
- And so I personally felt more secure,
- and I asked Max the other day, and he said, yes,
- he felt that way too, because he definitely looks very Jewish,
- but not in France anymore.
- At least he felt that way.
- And so did I, because no one knew me here.
- What struck us--
- And of course, we didn't have the stars on,
- which gave us quite an advantage.
- Obviously.
- And we no longer were wearing our heavy winter clothes.
- We had left them in the hotel.
- And another factor was that we had Belgian identity cards
- without the J. We didn't have in Holland.
- You know, we have infamous J on our identity cards.
- What struck us in Paris was that we saw so many French women
- walking arm in arm with German soldiers,
- that a fraternization which was totally unknown to us
- in Holland, because there was a hatred, such
- a hatred between the far greater majority of the Dutch
- and the Germans, that there was no fraternization at all.
- Also we saw that the stores in Paris
- still had some wares to offer.
- There were still things to buy, and one could buy.
- We didn't see any food stuff in the windows,
- but many things that had disappeared from the shops
- in Holland for at least a year already.
- After a walk we, we bought some papers, newspapers,
- and went back to our hotel.
- The next day, Max said to us, my father and I,
- we have done business for many years, when we still
- were in Germany, with a firm here in Paris.
- And my father visited him, visit the owner many a time
- and became quite friendly with him.
- I looked up.
- I looked at the telephone book.
- The firm still exists.
- What do you think?
- Should we go and visit this man who knows,
- of course, of my name, my father's name, and of our firm
- we had?
- Maybe he can give us some tips.
- And if, god forbid, it should happen to us again,
- that Francois does not show up here,
- maybe he will be able to help us to get to [INAUDIBLE] friends.
- It sounded very smart and logical.
- So we did.
- We walked through the ground the Grand Boulevard,
- and we found the address.
- We went up there to that.
- They were located on the first floor.
- We went upstairs.
- And a receptionist asked Max, can I help you?
- He said, I would like to see Monsieur--
- I forgot the name of his business relation there.
- She said, what is your name?
- So he gave the name.
- She said, one moment, please.
- She went to another room and called someone.
- A man came out, approached us.
- Again, spoke to Max, and said, I heard that you
- asked for Monsieur So-and-so.
- We all three noticed immediately that this man spoke
- with a heavy German accent, and that he
- must have been a German.
- So Max said, yes, I did.
- He said, what is the purpose of your visit?
- Max said, my father is a good friend of his,
- and I just wanted to give him--
- bringing my father's greetings.
- So with this, he invited us to come to the next room
- and ask Max what kind of business did you do.
- He said, well, I, as well, of course, as my father,
- are numismatists, and we have done business
- with Monsieur for at least 15 years.
- Oh, he said, that's interesting.
- Well just one minute.
- Excuse me one minute.
- He left the room.
- We looked at each other, and we knew exactly what
- was going to happen.
- With this, we opened the door, and passed, rushed--
- Bolted out.
- --bolted out past the receptionist,
- who looked at us with surprised eyes.
- We ran down the stairs, out in the street, around the corner
- to the subway station, to the metro station.
- And we didn't stop until we were inside the train
- taking us back to Montmartre.
- It could have, if we would have waited another few minutes,
- it would have cost us our lives, probably.
- From that moment on, we decided, we'd better stay indoors.
- It is not as safe to go out in Paris as we thought it was.
- The next morning, there was a knock at the door,
- and there was Francois, who said,
- I have been in touch with Josh.
- Look, show me your identity-- the Belgian identity cards.
- We showed it to him.
- He said, I want you to know that from here
- on they will be doing you no good as soon as we leave Paris.
- However you don't have to worry.
- I will not take the express train, Paris-Lyon.
- That one is always checked by the Germans and by the French.
- We will take locals, and reach the demarcation line
- in a roundabout way.
- So we ask him, where will you take us?
- He said, I take you to Le Creusot.
- That is a town not too far from the demarcation line.
- There we have to take a bus to a mining
- town called Montceau-les-Mines.
- Coal mines are there.
- And through, or just outside Montceau-les-Mines
- runs the demarcation line.
- We will stay in Montceau-les-Mines in a bar,
- restaurant, hotel that I know.
- And the next morning I take you over the demarcation line,
- where we bought a train to Lyon, because then you
- are in non-occupied France.
- Sounded fine to us.
- He said, tomorrow morning, early, I
- come here and take you to Gare de Lyon,
- and we bought the trains there.
- I want you to do one thing.
- Don't be on my side.
- Just walk behind me as inconspicuously
- as you can make it.
- And don't ask me any questions.
- Just follow me.
- Didn't we send our luggage, or the luggage-- the, you know--
- Not yet.
- Not from Paris.
- No, not from Paris.
- That we did from from Le Creusot.
- Yeah.
- But we still had our briefcases and, Dottie had her tote bag.
- Next morning, we took--
- we met him at the Gare de Lyon, where
- he was waiting outside, and lots of people
- in and out that station, railroad station.
- He had tickets already.
- We walked behind him, followed him through the--
- to the entrance, and boarded the train.
- He had also asked us, please, don't talk to me.
- Do as if I don't exist.
- You have foreign accents.
- It is too dangerous.
- Fine.
- We did what he had told us.
- The train was a local Paris-Dijon, a town in--
- more to the southwest of Paris.
- After about an hour's time, we were now alone
- in the compartment.
- He said, now you have to pay me the other amount,
- the other half of the amount that you
- had agreed upon with Josh.
- I said, excuse me.
- The agreement with Josh was that we
- pay you the half of the amount once we reach Lyon.
- We are still far from Lyon.
- He said, oh, no, I said to Josh that as soon as I take you
- on the trip, I want to be paid, because I'm risking my life.
- I said, but so are we.
- Nothing doing.
- Unless I get paid now, I get off the next stop,
- and you are on your own.
- You can continue alone.
- He had us over a barrel.
- I consulted with Dottie and Max, and we came to the conclusion
- we have no choice.
- We have to trust him.
- We paid him the amount, and we continued.
- We changed trains in Dijon, took an express train.
- We did see some German soldiers walking along that station,
- but they were not interested in checking
- any identity of anyone.
- We boarded that express train to Dijon, and--
- to Le Creusot, and we reached Le Creusot in the afternoon
- at about 2 o'clock.
- We sat down in a outdoor restaurant, ordered something
- to eat and to drink.
- And Francois turned to us and said,
- you see across this place?
- It was like a marketplace.
- You see across there is the bus stop where the people are
- waiting for the bus.
- As soon as the bus comes, that's the one
- we are taking to Montceau-les-Mines.
- But no bus came.
- We were sitting there for half an hour,
- for an hour, maybe an hour and a half.
- In the meantime, Francois got up, became nervous,
- went over, talked to the people, came back, and said to us,
- I don't know.
- They don't know why the bus is delayed to such an extent.
- But it ought to be here any minute.
- Again, he went over.
- And when he came back, he said there is a delay.
- They don't know how long it will take.
- It may take at least another hour or more.
- Why don't you give me--
- and he turned to Max and me.
- Why don't you give me your bulging briefcases which
- are so conspicuous, and I--
- For all three.
- Mine too.
- Yours too?
- All three of them.
- Why don't you give me your luggage that you are carrying,
- and I will go to the railroad station and send it ahead of us
- to Lyon.
- Give me an address in Lyon.
- We said we have no address in Lyon.
- Then we can send it [FRENCH].
- That means it stays there in depot until you come.
- We looked at each other, and we didn't like that at all.
- Why should he do it?
- Maybe he wouldn't come back?
- We said to him, one of us said to him, we have nothing to do.
- We have to wait.
- Let's all four go to the station,
- and let's walk a little.
- He said, OK, fine, if you want to.
- We all walked to the railroad station
- and parted with our luggage, got a receipt,
- and slowly walked back.
- The bus hadn't arrived yet.
- But after another half hour or so, it already began to--
- dusk was falling.
- There was movement in the crowd that was standing there
- across where we were sitting.
- And we heard someone calling out voila, le bus.
- The bus was there.
- It was an old dilapidated vehicle.
- We got up, and before we went over, he said to us,
- you get in first, and please go to the rear of the bus,
- and don't talk to each other.
- And I will sit in the front.
- When we reach Montceau-les-Mines,
- I will get off first, and then I will wait at the corner
- until you come out, and you join me.
- And then you walk behind me.
- All right.
- That's what we did.
- The bus left.
- At that time it was already dark.
- And it was chugging along the road.
- We didn't know where to.
- Everything was dark.
- We had traveled for perhaps 30 minutes
- or so when the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere.
- And the bus driver got out with flashlight.
- Someone else, one or two passengers, followed him.
- And they were talking in French.
- We couldn't hear in the back what was going on.
- But finally they came back, and the bus
- turned around and returned from where it was coming.
- And all three of us, we thought, now what are we going to do?
- Staying in Montceau-les-Mines?
- Is he going back to Montceau-les-Mines.
- But that wasn't the case.
- We heard from-- that the conversations
- that some passengers had that the road had become impassable
- by British bombs.
- The British had bombed Le Creusot,
- which was a one of the most important towns in France
- with armament factories.
- Schneider, the large French armament industrial concern,
- was located in that town.
- So the British had bombed the town
- and had damaged the road to Montceau-les-Mines.
- So the bus driver had to take a roundabout way, which
- took at least another hour to an hour and a half.
- It must have been about 10 o'clock
- at night when the bus finally came to a stop somewhere.
- Everything, everyone got out.
- We were the last one to leave the bus.
- And we barely saw, still, the outlines of Francois.
- We hastened and reached him at the corner just when he
- turned around the corner.
- You don't know up to this day whether the man tried
- to just run away from us, or whether he was so cautious
- that he turned the corner.
- Anyway we caught up with him and walked behind him
- through the darkened streets of the town.
- Then he stopped.
- He saw an entrance to a courtyard.
- There was a shed in the back.
- And to the right of that entrance to that yard,
- we saw a small building standing, a low building.
- We could barely see where we were.
- Francois turned to us and said, this
- is the back entrance of the pub, and to a little hotel.
- I don't know if he even told us that.
- He said, wait here till I come back.
- Yes, you are right.
- Yes, correct.
- Yes, yes, yes.
- He didn't know where we were, and he didn't even tell us.
- Yes, that's correct.
- He didn't tell us.
- We just found it out later.
- He said, just wait here for a moment.
- I have to see whether everything is OK.
- Yeah.
- That's what he said.
- And he disappeared--
- Everything is--
- --somewhere in the dark.
- He opened a door, and for just for a second,
- we could see light coming out from a room.
- What kind of room, we didn't know.
- And he went in there.
- We waited five minutes, 10 minutes.
- We became restless.
- Then 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, we knew something was wrong.
- It couldn't be that he had to talk so long.
- So Max said, maybe there are still persons in that pub,
- and Francois doesn't want to take us in there.
- So Dottie said, but at least--
- We didn't even know it was a pub.
- We didn't know.
- But at least, he said, then, if some people
- he doesn't want us to meet are in there,
- then he would come out and let us know.
- After another few minutes, we decided we cannot just stay
- there in the street.
- Any person passing us could become suspicious.
- Besides, there was a curfew.
- There was a certain time that you are not
- supposed to be out anymore.
- So anybody out in the street was suspect.
- We didn't know where the curfew would start.
- So finally, we decided, we are entering that same door
- where he had disappeared.
- We opened the door.
- It was some kind of a kitchen with a stove to the left,
- and a wooden table in the middle,
- and there were six or seven people, four men and two women
- sitting around the table.
- They all looked at us in amazement.
- I addressed the lady, who asked me--
- who had ask us, who are you, in French.
- Since I was the most fluent in French, I answered her,
- we are three fugitives from Holland.
- We had a guy by the name of Francois who took us here,
- and he said we could stay here overnight.
- He entered about 15, 20 minutes ago, and said to us
- we should wait outside, and we call us,
- and he hasn't called us.
- With this, a man, apparently her husband, owner, said,
- this damned--
- yeah.
- Some kind of a scoundrel.
- Scoundrel or his traitor, scum.
- He had he-- he betrayed you.
- That is one of those who betrays people.
- We have had more of those.
- You know what he did?
- He hoped that the Germans, who always patrol
- and check the buses from Le Creusot,
- they usually wait at the bus-- where the bus terminal is,
- and they check all the identity cards,
- because we are close to the demarcation line.
- He wanted you to be arrested, but your bus
- came two hours late, so the Germans didn't wait anymore.
- Otherwise, you would now be arrested by the Germans,
- and god knows what's going to happen to you,
- would have happened to you.
- With this, I said, please let us stay.
- Here we cannot go outside.
- We don't know where to go.
- We don't know what to do.
- The woman turned around and said, I'm very sorry.
- I can't do that.
- I have been in trouble once before.
- The Germans come here every day to check.
- And I can't risk my life and that of the other people.
- There were chairs.
- We sat down without being asked to.
- And I said, madam, if you send us out from your house,
- we will die.
- You know that.
- You can't do that to people.
- We are innocent people, and we are fleeing to save our lives.
- I beg of you, don't send us out.
- Everyone was looking at us.
- We had no choice.
- We had to tell them exactly how things were.
- With this, the man, her husband, got up and said,
- let me try to find that scoundrel.
- I have a suspicion where he might be.
- With this, he left.
- But we really didn't want him anymore,
- because we didn't trust him.
- Of course we didn't trust him.
- Went through the back entrance and walked out
- the front entrance.
- But the other man said let me try and--
- No, not yet.
- Not yet.
- That was later.
- Don't remember that he went up to find him.
- No.
- Yes, that the owner left.
- I know it.
- I remember that very clearly, because of the fact
- that when he left, he had practically given us permission
- to stay until he came back.
- And his wife no longer insisted that we leave.
- The other people-- there was a young pregnant woman
- sitting there, her and three men, apparently coal miners,
- the way they were dressed.
- They ask us some questions, and we told them
- about what has happened to us, and that we had been
- betrayed in Belgium already.
- Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
- And the door opened.
- Two German soldiers with rifles were standing
- in the opening of the door.
- All of us froze.
- But most of all, the three of us, because to our minds went,
- this is the end.
- Goodbye.
- Just was no doubt.
- I can only remember how the other two looked.
- I've never seen them look that way.
- Their eyes were just as large as--
- as cups.
- And they looked like they popped out.
- And that there was just panic written all over their faces.
- And I must have looked to them exactly the same way--
- You did.
- --in my despair.
- I picked up the cat that was on the floor, and I started--
- I picked it up on my lap and started
- petting it and petting it, just to give ourselves,
- in a desperate position, as a sort of a casual air.
- And then we were just hoping for the best, I think.
- You take it from there again.
- The woman jumped up and greeted these two soldiers, especially
- the one corporal, effusively.
- Ah, my chers amis, and then grabbed the corporal
- by the arm.
- Please sit down and sit down.
- I bring you beer.
- And in a second she was back with two bottles of beer
- and filled the glasses of these two guys.
- The older of the two, the corporal
- looked around and smiled, and saw the pregnant woman sitting
- close by.
- And he started making obscene jokes about her belly,
- and in broken French, half-German, half-French.
- And everyone was laughing about these stupid jokes.
- Everyone was really putting up a good act.
- Perfect actors.
- Max and I, we turned away from--
- our faces away from the Germans.
- And looking at the other men so as not to face them.
- back was the woman immediately and filled the glasses again.
- And they continued.
- The corporal continued talking, and joking,
- and speaking to another man who understood a little German.
- And--
- And we made believe we didn't understand German.
- Not a word.
- And meanwhile they kept on drinking and drinking,
- and the glasses were filled three, four, five times.
- Suddenly, the corporal, he was already red
- in his neck and face, he turned to the woman and said, who?
- Pointed with a finger to the two of us, Max and me.
- Who are these-- who are these people?
- Again, our hearts stopped.
- The woman said very nonchalantly to, ils sont des voyageurs.
- They are travelers, which could mean 1,000 things and nothing,
- without protecting us.
- It was a totally neutral, ingenious answer.
- Ils sont des voyageurs.
- Some travelers.
- He was satisfied, apparently, and he
- kept on joking, and drinking, and talking.
- And then the door opened, and the owner returned.
- And he immediately knew, overlooked the situation,
- knew that nothing bad had happened,
- and sat down next to me.
- There was a seat free next to me.
- And while the German soldier was babbling, I ask him--
- we spoke to him, any news?
- He looked at me and said, not now.
- So I kept quiet.
- Finally, after an eternity--
- it was at least an hour--
- the soldiers got up, auf wiedersehen, and left.
- Well, we started breathing again,
- and everybody started talking at the same time.
- It was the most incredible relief, that none of us
- really thought this was going to happen.
- They didn't ask us for our papers,
- and didn't doubt her words.
- Just left.
- But a minute later, there was a knock, and the door opened.
- There were the two again.
- And again--
- So then we knew, now they're going to ask for our papers,
- because they talked to each other outside,
- and one must have reproached, probably
- the older one who looked more serious and more suspicious,
- suspicious of us, he probably told the younger
- one, what did we do?
- We should have found out who these people are.
- That's what went through our mind.
- That's what went through our mind, all three of us,
- probably, separately here.
- But we have more or less the same idea,
- that this definitely is it.
- But what really happened was they had forgotten
- their-- well, one of the two had forgotten his--
- Rifle.
- --rifle in the corner, because he
- had a little bit too much to drink, and remembered later,
- came back just to pick up his rifle, and left again.
- That was definitely the end of that episode.
- We waited a few minutes, but fortunately, they
- didn't return.
- And that's when the owner said, I couldn't find the guy.
- You see, he said, this is the back room of our pub.
- The pub is there and closes at 8 o'clock.
- He must have known that, because he came in and ask us--
- gave us a fictitious-- it's one or the other name.
- Do you know whether he was here?
- So we said, no.
- So he left through the front and disappeared.
- So what are we going to do now?
- Did you have any money left?
- We still had some money left.
- Not much, though.
- Very few.
- A few hundred francs, which wasn't much, really.
- And one man, with a miner cap on his head,
- he suddenly started talking to us.
- He said, look.
- I know in what predicament you people are.
- I cannot do anything for you.
- But I have a cousin.
- He is also a miner, mine worker.
- He has a German permit to a--
- hunting permit in the area.
- He knows this whole area like the pocket of his trousers.
- I'm going to talk to him.
- Wait here.
- I'll return.
- So he came back after maybe half an hour, and said,
- I spoke to my cousin.
- He's willing to do it.
- Tell me, people, do you still have some money left?
- We said, very little.
- He said, do you think that each of you could,
- for the risk this--
- my cousin is taking, that you could spare--
- might you spare 100 francs each.
- That was like asking for $2, $2 each.
- We said, oh, yes.
- That we still have.
- He said, if you can't, he will take you without money.
- But he will take you over the demarcation line.
- So we knew that we were now with the good French people.
- He came back and said, my cousin is willing.
- Please take off your shoes, because the curfew
- is on already, since quite a while.
- It was after 12:00 by then.
- After midnight.
- The curfew was 10:00 or 11:00.
- And--
- We went barefoot.
- Silently, through the darkened street,
- for maybe 15 or 20 minutes.
- Tiny little houses, very poor neighborhood.
- He knocked at the door.
- And a youngish man opened the door,
- and he greeted us very friendly, and he
- said, you poor people, what you went through, come in, come in.
- And then his wife came and greeted us.
- His cousin left, wished us good luck.
- And he said, you must be hungry.
- You haven't eaten all day.
- Did you?
- We said, no, we didn't.
- So his wife--
- Please, continue.
- Because you know better what happened there.
- I can't remember.
- Well, she offered to give us something to eat.
- We didn't even realize that we were hungry.
- We had other things on our minds.
- But she quickly put together sort
- of a dinner in a one or one and a half room little house.
- But before she-- or while the potatoes that she had peeled
- were boiling, she got both of her children--
- or were there three?
- I'm not sure anymore.
- Two, two.
- Two.
- Two children on a bed.
- They were sleeping of course.
- But she was so proud of her children,
- and she wanted to show us her two--
- the two kids.
- And so we ate a salad and some potatoes,
- and slept for a couple of hours, I think.
- Yeah.
- Till very early in the morning.
- Just started getting light.
- I would like to mention something,
- that as soon as we lay down, [NON-ENGLISH] got into shock.
- I didn't go to shock.
- Yes, you started shaking violently
- from the horrible excitement that we had just gone through.
- And I don't know.
- Perhaps Max and I too.
- Because now came the reaction of that awful day,
- that horrible-- these horrible 24 hours
- that we have gone through.
- And we must all three of us be shaking.
- We had about three hours, two or three or four
- hours sleep, when the mine worker awakened us,
- got something to drink, and a short breakfast.
- It was not daylight yet when we left.
- While we were walking, he said to us,
- we will have to walk about half an hour.
- Then we will have reached the outskirts of Montceau.
- I will stop when we reach a kind of a--
- how do you call it?
- A dry riverbed.
- That divides occupied and non-occupied France.
- And the demarcation line runs through this dry river bed.
- You will stop.
- I will tell you where to stop.
- And I will cross it very fast and run up
- the embankment on the other side into that forest
- that you see not far.
- And I won't stop until I have reached the forest.
- I will look out whether it is safe for you to cross.
- Because very often, on both sides,
- German soldiers are watching there with machine guns.
- So after I am safely on the other side,
- I will give you a sign.
- We reached that point.
- He said, stop here.
- Then he looked around.
- Then he raced across that riverbed and up the other side
- and kept on climbing like a quick animal, and stopped.
- Then he signaled us, and all three of us,
- we raced down as fast as we could,
- crossed that riverbed, up the embankment to the other side.
- He kept on running.
- And we followed him for maybe five, six minutes.
- Then we came to a some open part of that forest.
- He stopped, waited until we came nearby, embraced us, and said,
- now you are in non-occupied France.
- Then he continued, non occupée mes pas libre.
- It is the non-occupied part, but not free.
- Remember that, my friends.
- So we continued until we reached a kind of a road, a dirt road.
- He said, I will go.
- I will walk with you until we reach the first village.
- It is called [FRENCH].
- There is no train station there, but I cannot go further than
- that, because I don't want to meet people who perhaps know me
- from--
- that I live in the other side.
- It could endanger my life.
- We reached the-- we could see that little village
- where we stopped.
- And we gave the man 1,000 francs of the maybe 1,500
- we still had left.
- He didn't want to accept at first, but finally he did.
- And we thanked him, and we embraced,
- and he gave us pictures of his children, which Max still has--
- Yeah, he does.
- --up to this day.
- Yeah, he kept it.
- We--
- The village, [PLACE NAME],, did not have a railroad.
- It was about 10 kilometers from the first little town where
- there was a train to be had.
- We were tired from walking, so we
- decided that we stay in [PLACE NAME],, a little village,
- very friendly people.
- And to our surprise, food was no problem.
- We didn't need coupons, which you needed anywhere else.
- And they ask us whether we were refugees.
- We talked freely there.
- Because in spite of the fact that we were told
- it is non-occupied France but not free,
- the people were friendly, full of understanding,
- and sympathetic.
- So we felt almost at home before the war,
- as it was before the war.
- You saw no police, no soldiers.
- It was too small, too insignificant a place.
- There was one little inn.
- That's where we stayed overnight, and had
- a bath, which was the greatest luxury since we
- had left Amsterdam.
- And in the evening, when we had dinner, the owner, a farmer,
- by the way, he said to us, are you leaving tomorrow for Lyon?
- We said, yes, we would like to, only we
- don't know how to get to [FRENCH]..
- He said, I have to do I have to do business in [FRENCH],,
- and I go there by horse and buggy.
- If you want to, you can hop into my buggy, and I take you along.
- We were delighted.
- And strangely enough, once we left in the morning,
- it was a bright, beautiful day, and we
- were riding through the French beautiful landscape,
- we felt so elated, in spite of what we had just gone through,
- that we started singing all the songs that we possibly
- could remember.
- And we were in a elated, happy mood.
- He delivered us to [FRENCH].
- We took the train, a local train, which took forever,
- but we reached Lyon without any incidents.
- First thing we did in Lyon was to go to the depot
- and claim our luggage.
- We got it back indeed, but half empty.
- Things, anything of value, was stolen.
- Very little was left.
- But the main thing is we felt now safe in--
- to be in non-occupied France.
- We walked through the streets.
- We didn't know where the office [NON-ENGLISH],,
- Netherlands office, the unofficial--
- There was no consulate anymore.
- Yeah, the unofficial consulate of the Netherlands,
- where it was located.
- So we saw a couple walking down the street
- with two girls, apparently their daughters.
- We walked up to that family.
- And in our best French we asked, could you please tell us where
- the [NON-ENGLISH] is?
- I think we had looked up the street in a telephone book,
- but we had no idea where it was, so we asked.
- We looked for the [NON-ENGLISH].
- Would you tell us how to get there?
- Well, in the best Dutch, they answered.
- It seemed that you come from Holland.
- It was so obvious from our accent.
- They have fled just a few weeks before us, before we, she said.
- And, well, they showed us exactly the way
- how to get there.
- Next thing we did, I think we immediately went there.
- No, no.
- I want to--
- Oh, you want to tell more about this family.
- --and something else.
- He asked, what's your name?
- So We told our names.
- And When.
- [NON-ENGLISH] said, my name is--
- [NON-ENGLISH].
- Parfumeur, he said, I helped a Eddie Parfumeur,
- a few weeks ago to get to Switzerland.
- Are you related to my?
- That's my brother.
- It was her brother.
- That was the craziest coincidence.
- It just seemed unbelievable, because what they told us,
- we didn't even know yet, that he had gone to Switzerland,
- but was sent back into France by the Swiss.
- Expulsed.
- Expulsed.
- And there was quite a time that the Swiss did not
- take any refugees in.
- So he was sent back, landed somehow again in Lyon,
- met them.
- He had no money with him anymore,
- and he didn't know how to get back and try again
- for Switzerland.
- And they were diamond dealers, and very wealthy.
- They helped them with money.
- And he had promised to pay him back,
- but he said he wouldn't dream of getting back the money.
- But my brother apparently had borrowed that money,
- and planned to give it back after the war.
- And on the second effort he made it to Switzerland.
- But they hadn't heard from him anymore,
- but we already knew that, so we could tell him
- that the end was good.
- He was in a camp for refugees in Switzerland.
- Cossonay, quite well known among the refugees.
- We reached the Dutch office.
- We were greeted by that representative with,
- you cannot stay here.
- There are roundups going on, and there
- are Gestapo agents not in uniform, but Gestapo
- everywhere.
- You cannot go to a hotel, because you may be picked up
- tonight.
- What I can do for you is I give you papers.
- Do you have any papers?
- No, we have nothing.
- The only thing we have are false Belgian identity cards,
- which, of course, are of no value here.
- So he said, OK, I am allowed and entitled,
- by the Dutch free government, to furnish documents to you--
- passports.
- He asked Max and me, are you Dutch citizens?
- We said, no, we are stateless.
- He said, from now on you are Dutch.
- Until you reach safety, you are Dutch.
- I give you passports, a kind of passport.
- So we all got passports.
- We were all born in Amsterdam.
- And we are all of Dutch nationality.
- But he said, you must find yourself a place, a safe place,
- talk to others here.
- There were a lot of--
- quite a number of Dutch young people
- milling around in that consulate.
- See whether you can find a place where you can sleep.
- And as soon as possible, get out of the town.
- So we ask him, get out?
- But where to?
- How about Switzerland?
- He said, oh, no.
- I have no guide, and I can't help you at all
- because it has become almost impossible to get
- into Switzerland.
- The Germans and the French, they are watching,
- and the Swiss, the Swiss throw you out
- as soon as you get there.
- I said, well, then the other border is Spain.
- He said, what do you know about Spain, he asked me.
- And I said, I lived there.
- So he says, what do you want?
- What are you waiting for?
- Then go to Spain.
- That's your best bet.
- I said, yes.
- That's what we aimed for.
- But how do we get there?
- He said we have a representative in Perpignan.
- His name is such and such.
- You tell him that you got the papers here,
- and he should help you to, first of all,
- to be legalized in Perpignan, until you either
- get an exit visa.
- I said what is an exit visa?
- That's when he explained to us that all men, in the age
- group of 18 to 45 must get an exit visa from the Vichy
- government to leave the territory.
- And then he said, if you have the exit visa,
- then you can get a Spanish visa, transit visa,
- to England, that our government will issue.
- You do get a visa for England, but only once you are in Spain.
- Said, can we get it?
- He said, lately, no one has gotten an exit visa.
- It will be no problem for [NON-ENGLISH]..
- But for you, two men, yes.
- But first get to Perpignan, and then you see what happens.
- We spoke to a young woman who was just leaving that same day.
- She said, I have a place.
- There is a fur dealer--
- Furrier.
- --a furrier by the name of Edelman.
- I'll give you the address.
- I have been put up there, and it's a very nice family.
- They are Polish, but they live in France already
- for many years.
- They will definitely take you in.
- That's where we went.
- Immediately we were taken in and fed by these people.
- Next day, we boarded the train to Perpignan.
- Forget where we slept.
- Yeah.
- The night, we were put up on the--
- In the basement, in heaps of--
- Heaps of hides.
- Hides.
- Hides?
- Hides.
- And the smell.
- And jute, the bags, you know, jute, the course material.
- And we got--
- A pleasant--
- --plenty of lice from that.
- Not lice, but-- not only lice, but bedbugs.
- It was terrible.
- We reached Perpignan.
- Perpignan I knew because I had stayed there for several times
- when I traveled from Spain, before the war,
- from Spain to Belgium and Holland.
- I had always, on my way back, stopped in Perpignan.
- I knew Perpignan.
- We went to a hotel that I remembered,
- Hotel de la [FRENCH].
- And we got two rooms.
- We still had a little money.
- And we thought, well, what can we do now?
- So I said to Dottie and Max, I'll tell you what I can do.
- I have a friend who lives in Figueres.
- Figueres is across the Pyrenees, the first town on Spanish side,
- in Catalonia.
- We have been not only doing business regularly,
- business with this man for several years,
- but we had become friendly with him too.
- He was about 20 years older than I am--
- in my eyes, an elderly gentleman.
- I'm going to call Mr. Delfo tell him that we are here.
- I know that he is a big shot now in the Franco regime,
- because he had been a Francoist man,
- and his sons had escaped from Barcelona, had never
- served in the republican army.
- He may be able to help us.
- And maybe we can--
- I can borrow some money from him till after the war.
- Firstly, we got to the hotel.
- And next day, I went to phone him.
- He was happy to hear me.
- I didn't tell him that I was with a friend,
- but I just told him that, with my future wife,
- we have made it.
- I said, could you come over here?
- I have things to discuss with you,
- because I didn't want to speak on the phone about these items.
- He said, yes, I'll be over in three days.
- I am the president of the International Red
- Cross in the province of Catalonia,
- and I can easily travel back and forth.
- No problem for me.
- The next day, we walked around in Perpignan.
- And when we came back to have lunch,
- we were approached by a young man.
- He said, in perfect Dutch, I heard you speaking Dutch.
- Are you a refugee?
- So we told him the whole story.
- He said let me introduce myself.
- My name is Fred Manheim.
- I come from The Hague.
- And tell me-- and we told him everything.
- And I said, you are from The Hague.
- Do you by any chance know Echo and Rita Corman?
- He said, they are my friends.
- They are here in Perpignan.
- I said, what?
- Yes, they are in the Hotel de la Loge.
- By the way, he said in the Hotel de la Loge are far more
- Dutch people, all refugees.
- We have all come from Nice, because the French started
- picking up Jewish refugees, so it was not safe anymore.
- We came to Perpignan.
- And we are all waiting for our exit visas.
- Come over.
- I introduce.
- I show you.
- And your friends will be thrilled to meet you.
- So we met with our friends.
- And there was great jubilation that we had all made it.
- We were told they all waited for their visas.
- Rita, our friend from Amsterdam, she was from Amsterdam,
- she called me from The Hague.
- They got married shortly before they fled.
- She had an exit visa, but he couldn't get one.
- He was still waiting.
- We went to the consul, or rather the Dutch representatives,
- and he gave us a paper for the police,
- and we got a temporary--
- Visa.
- --Dutch visa.
- That permit, permit to stay in Perpignan.
- That is, we showed you the one document that we still have
- from [NON-ENGLISH].
- The condition is that it had to be renewed every month.
- It was given for one month to the other.
- We stayed in Perpignan.
- And our friend Delfo came.
- I told him what--
- the whole story, and said to him Mr. Delfo, we need money.
- He said, you have nothing anymore?
- I said, only Dutch money, which is useless here or in France.
- No one could change Dutch money which we still have,
- maybe a couple of thousand of guilders.
- He said, you can go to the [PERSONAL NAME]
- that we have used before the war.
- Remember him?
- I said, yes, I remember.
- I didn't think of him.
- He said, he will change the guilders for you,
- and then you will have enough.
- Otherwise, I give you as many pesetas as you wish.
- I ask him whether he can do something for us.
- He said, I cannot help you with the exit visa.
- The Spanish visa I can help you, but I said,
- look, it may come to a point where
- we will have to try to get illegally into Spain.
- Can you help us with a guide?
- He was taken aback.
- He said, where do you want to go?
- I said, we want to go to, of course, to Spain.
- And then we want to try to reach England.
- I saw something in his eyes, and I
- regretted that I had said that.
- And it plagued me from that moment on.
- Why was I so dumb to mention that we go to England?
- I knew that the man was pro-Franco,
- and that he may resent that.
- He was against England.
- What year was this?
- What was the date?
- That was 19-- in November 1942.
- I went to the forwarder.
- He changed the money.
- He said, where do you live.
- I said in the Hotel de la Loge.
- He said, it's much too expensive.
- I have a little empty apartment of my brother, who
- is a war prisoner in Germany.
- Why don't you take that?
- I said, how much will it cost?
- He said, nothing.
- We moved into that house, that little--
- One room.
- --one-room house.
- It had an outhouse.
- It had a little kitchen in that large room,
- and it had a bed, and a couch.
- Cot.
- A cot.
- We put ourselves up there, and we were quite happy there.
- And we stayed there for several weeks,
- getting together each day with friends and other Dutch people.
- We had actually a very good time.
- But still active, to try to get out--
- We passed the time in Perpignan getting together,
- playing bridge, and simply waiting and waiting.
- By that time, it was now the middle of November 1942.
- It had become quite clear that the young-- the men who
- were waiting for their exit visa would never
- get it, because they didn't hear from Vichy.
- And an emissary who was sent to Vichy came back with the news
- that it is totally unclear and uncertain when, if ever,
- the exit visas would be given out.
- No, it was not middle of November yet.
- It was the beginning of November.
- I must correct myself.
- We weren't that long in Perpignan.
- Yes, we were there until the 11th.
- But this, I am talking now of the first days of November.
- Rita was urged by her husband, by our friend, and by us
- to leave, not to stay any longer.
- You are legal.
- You have a Spanish visa.
- You have your papers all in order.
- Get out.
- What do you want to wait here?
- She very, very reluctantly left Perpignan, finally,
- but I had to promise her I, the one who had lived in Spain
- and had the friendship with that Spaniard across the Pyrenees,
- that should we ever leave, leave clandestinely, go
- over the Pyrenees, that I would not leave her husband behind.
- I promised her that.
- And she left.
- We had often dinner in a restaurant where
- we didn't have to give coupons.
- We had to pay more money, but the food was also much better.
- The owner was an elderly French lady.
- And somehow a German-Jewish refugee, a little older
- than we are aware, maybe in his late 40s,
- befriended this woman, and he lived there.
- And he started talking to us, and we found out from him
- that he was from Germany, had left
- his non-Jewish wife, et cetera, et cetera.
- And one day, I ask him, tell me, Mr. Ehrlich, you
- live here now since eight month, as you told us.
- Do you know guides that bring refugees into Spain?
- He said, as a matter of fact, yes.
- I do know one.
- I said, would you be willing to give me his name?
- Since we had created a kind of friendship with this man,
- because we had been there very often, he knew our story,
- and we knew his story, he said, I do better.
- This man, who lives in Amélie-les-Bains--
- that is a spa up high up in the mountains
- in the French Pyrenees.
- Once a month he comes to Perpignan doing some shopping.
- He is due any day now to come here.
- When he comes, I introduce you to him.
- Indeed, the man came a few days later, and I spoke to the man,
- and said to him, I have friends in Figueres.
- I don't know whether we can get our visas.
- If we don't get them within a reasonable time,
- can I count on you that you will take the three of us
- over the Pyrenees?
- He said, yes.
- I said, how much will it cost us to do it?
- He mentioned the amount which we still had.
- We were able to pay that.
- OK.
- I said here, I leave you my phone number.
- I have to know when you come, and let me know, because then I
- pick you up from the train station,
- because we continue further to another place, which is,
- in my opinion, safer.
- A few days passed.
- And we needed a certificate from a doctor.
- Yes, yes.
- I know.
- But we got that a little later.
- In the meantime, it was, I believe, the 10th of--
- the 9th or the 10th of November, Echo came from-- our friend
- Echo came from the Hotel de la Loge early in the morning,
- running to our little apartment, very excitedly.
- They had just heard that American forces had landed
- in Casablanca and other place, and that there were rumors
- already that German troops may occupy the rest of France,
- so-called Vichy France.
- And a day later, on the 11th of November,
- that's exactly what happened.
- On the morning of that day, Dotti, Max, and I
- met with our friend, Echo, and we
- decided to try to call the passeur, as he was meant--
- as the smuggler or guide was called in French,
- that I was to approach him and tell him that we
- would come in a day or two.
- We were told we need to move from one place
- to another, especially the frontier area.
- You needed a so-called sauf-conduit.
- That means a safe conduct.
- It's a paper.
- You will see, Dottie still has that original paper,
- which was given out by the prefecture--
- that is the police station--
- which allows that person to travel in that particular area,
- and it gives also the reason why, what the travel is for.
- We were told that you must go to a doctor.
- The doctor will have to certify why
- you go there, for health reasons, if you
- want to go to that spot.
- But how to do it?
- Again, we went to Mr. Ehrlich.
- He said, I know a doctor.
- You can go there.
- Tell him whatever you want.
- All four of us.
- That is what Dottie mentioned before.
- All four of us presented ourself to the doctor,
- and said that we would like to go--
- we would like to go to Amélie-les-Bains.
- And he said, why?
- Is there an epidemic broken out amongst the Dutch?
- He said, you can trust me.
- You want to cross into Spain, right?
- We said, yes.
- He said, wait.
- I give you papers.
- He wrote out for each four of us a medical statement that we had
- trouble with the stomach on account of food poisoning
- or something, and that we needed a stay in Amélie-les-Bains.
- We went to the police, the policeman for foreigners.
- He winked at us, but signed the paper.
- He was a good Frenchman.
- As I must say, at this occasion, we
- found in Perpignan, and in that part of France, only
- good French, helpful French, anti-German French,
- who helped foreigners as much as they possibly could.
- We had the papers now safely in our hands.
- The next morning already-- it was the 12th of November--
- we heard noise early in the morning.
- We quickly got up, and we knew the Germans
- are marching into Perpignan.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- I don't know why.
- I had that urge to see these troops marching
- through Perpignan.
- I went to the main street, and I saw some French citizens
- standing there, tears running down their cheeks, others
- in fury, watching them marching down,
- marching through Perpignan.
- I rushed back.
- By that time, our friend Echo had also come.
- I had telephoned the guide in Amélie
- and told him we are leaving this afternoon.
- There was an electric train leaving Perpignan
- for the mountains, and going to the Spanish border
- high up in the mountains.
- It was largely unknown to any foreigner that such a train
- exists, because the main line from Paris to the French
- to the Spanish border ran through Perpignan,
- further on to [FRENCH],, the last town in France,
- and that connected with the [NON-ENGLISH] on the Spanish
- side.
- I said to my friends, we are not going
- to go through the main line, because the Germans may
- be standing there watching who is leaving or tries to leave.
- Let's go through the mountains with the electric train
- to [PLACE NAME], Spain.
- And that's what we did.
- We were just about leave that apartment we had,
- that little house, when another young guy, the youngest of all
- of us, maybe 19 years old, from The Hague, came rushing to us.
- You can't leave me.
- You can't leave me.
- For god's sakes, you have to take me along.
- I'm going to die here.
- I have no one.
- If you leave, I'm alone here, it's my end.
- So I decided, OK, so can we do--
- take him along?
- So we were now five of us.
- We all had bought some sugar--
- Cubes.
- --cubes of sugar that the guide had advised us to,
- and a few other things that he had said we should buy for us.
- But otherwise, we had simply the thin jacket,
- because our coats were gone.
- We took the train and arrived late afternoon
- in Amélie-les-Bains.
- There, the man was waiting for us.
- He got into the train.
- He said let's continue to Arles-sur-Tech.
- Tech was a mountain stream coming from Andorra
- down to Arles-sur-Tech.
- And that was the end of the line.
- We got off there.
- It was dark.
- And he said to us, we are now beginning to cross the Tech,
- through to Arles-sur-Tech, and then up the mountains.
- Follow me.
- We are not going.
- There are no ways.
- There are no streets.
- There are no paths.
- I find my way.
- I know the mountains.
- But you have to stay close behind me or you will lose me.
- It's too dark.
- How far was it, in terms of distance, over that mountain.
- He never told us--
- Didn't know.
- --what the distance--
- It's a good thing we didn't know.
- --what the distance was.
- My estimate is that it could have been 10 miles.
- But we had to climb over a whole--
- Range of mountains.
- --range, the breadth of the Pyrenees,
- from France into Spain.
- And only so it was the next mountain.
- And he thought that's the last one we have to get over,
- until you were on top, and then you
- saw there was the next and the next.
- And so we never really knew how far and how high we had to go.
- Our guide was really a very well trained psychologist,
- because he never told us what was ahead of us.
- He knew that we were totally inexperienced.
- We had never been mountain climbing.
- Surely not.
- [NON-ENGLISH] was born in Holland,
- the flattest country on earth, or Max,
- who had never been up mountains, nor I, for that matter,
- those high mountains.
- We crossed through that little town of Arles-sur-Tech,
- which is now a well known and famous Dutch spa, and--
- Dutch?
- I'm sorry.
- French spa, and visited by hundred
- of thousands of visitors all over Europe
- because of the natural beauty.
- We had no eye for beauty in those days.
- We just wanted to be safe.
- Besides, it was dark.
- Dark.
- Pitch dark.
- We couldn't see any beauty.
- There was-- it was a clear night.
- We followed him.
- And then we reached the river.
- We had to cross it.
- And it came down with such a force
- that you could hear the sound of that stream a mile away.
- When we got to it, we saw that the bridge consisted
- of a tree that had been--
- A plank.
- --a plank that crossed that river.
- And that was all.
- Dottie has.
- I'm going to have a nightmare.
- So please continue.
- What happened then?
- No, I don't even want to think about it.
- That plank was that wide.
- One foot wide.
- She refused to cross it, because she had--
- [CROSS TALK] just knew it was way down.
- You heard a loud stream.
- And--
- And she has a fear of heights.
- You couldn't even see the other side.
- You just knew that there was another side
- at the end of the plank.
- And I have fear of heights.
- The guide, Max, Echo, James-- that was his name.
- They all had crossed.
- I was the only one still waiting for my fiancée to decide
- to cross, but she couldn't.
- She was too afraid.
- So the guide called back, [FRENCH],, quick, quick, quick.
- Come on.
- And Max came back.
- But no.
- Then Max returned.
- I said to him, Dottie can't make it.
- She can't make it.
- So finally we convinced her to--
- Max would go first, then she followed him,
- and I came behind her.
- And then, slowly, sidewise, we--
- Holding on to each other.
- --holding on-- holding on to each other,
- we sidewise moved over to the other side.
- And that's how she reached the other side of the Tech.
- That was quite some doing.
- Then our climb.
- I still don't--
- I beg your pardon?
- I still don't know why I did it.
- You don't know why you did it, but unfortunately, you did it.
- Then began our climb.
- We followed the man.
- It became bitter cold.
- It was a clear night.
- And we were shivering.
- We walked, or climbed, and fell for maybe four hours.
- It must have been well over--
- later than midnight when he finally stopped and said,
- let's rest here for a short while,
- because we cannot stay too long.
- You will freeze to death.
- You are not dressed.
- And you're not allowed to sleep, because it's too dangerous.
- You will die.
- Because of the cold.
- But he--
- And it's all we really needed to do, close our eyes and sleep.
- But we weren't allowed to.
- There was still some vegetation there, trees.
- We got together some wood, and he lit a fire.
- We ask him, isn't that dangerous?
- He said, if the Germans try to reach this place from where
- they are now in Perpignan, it will take them at least a day.
- So don't worry.
- By the time they come up here, you are long in Spain.
- After a couple of hours, we continued,
- and we climbed the whole night through.
- The next morning, the mountains became less forbidding,
- and we had--
- we could, for some time, we could walk almost,
- instead of climbing.
- But slowly, vegetation stopped, and there were only rocks,
- and some kind of grass or whatever, alpine grass
- or whatever you call that, which made our shoes very slippery.
- Very often, one or the other was falling.
- But mostly our friend, [NON-ENGLISH],, he was plump,
- and had never done any sports, and was really the most
- unsporty type one can imagine.
- At a given moment, after we had again walked and climbed
- for maybe six hours, he fell again for the umptieth time.
- He was so exhausted that he said, let me lie here.
- I cannot.
- I am unable to continue.
- This is the end.
- They kicked him in his behind and said no.
- We won't leave you here to die.
- You come with us.
- So Max and James and I, in turn, and very often Dottie,
- helped him to continue.
- I cannot explain how, but somehow we made it
- into the second night.
- We were not only exhausted.
- We were now completely numb, talking
- had practically ceased, because we didn't have
- the strength anymore to talk.
- It got dark.
- And then we found someplace, that the guide
- found somewhere a place that was protected from the sharp--
- from the sharp wind.
- And we rested there for another hour or two.
- Again, we fell asleep, but he wouldn't let us sleep.
- And he said, look, have courage, because we are not
- far from the Spanish border anymore.
- We have about three more mountains to cross,
- and then you will be in Spain.
- That gave us some--
- a little more courage and strength.
- We continued.
- The sun went up.
- It was again day.
- And after walking and climbing maybe for another two hours,
- he stopped and called us.
- Come here.
- He said, you see that smoke coming up
- from that little house there?
- That is already Spain.
- Here runs the Spanish border.
- You have reached Spain.
- Now I wish you good luck and goodbye.
- You'll pay me the money.
- We gave him the money.
- You cannot miss it.
- You just walk towards that house, and there is Spain.
- And he left us.
- We made it up to that farm, that mountain farm.
- They saw us coming.
- A man came out and looked at us in surprise.
- I spoke to him in Spanish, and he didn't know what to hear,
- because no one had spoken Spanish to him for so far.
- I told him what has happened, that we want to stay in Spain,
- that I have a friend in Figueres, and gave the name.
- He knew it because he was well known.
- I said to him, let us stay in your house.
- He consented, although he said, the Guardia Civil,
- the Spanish police, they are checking here.
- But I keep you hidden.
- He got in touch by sending his son down to phone Mr. Delfo,
- came back with the message.
- We should the next day, go down to the next--
- to the first village and present ourself to the police.
- That we did.
- The policeman knew, because Mr. Delfo had contacted them.
- Did you tell them about the sleeping arrangement?
- No, that's too details.
- We have no time for this.
- And we thought that we would then be sent to Barcelona
- and see the Dutch consul.
- Not so.
- We were all arrested for crossing the Spanish border
- without legal papers.
- We went to the police, a prison, jail, in Figueres.
- Then Dottie was separated from us
- and sent to Girona, the capital of Catalonia,
- to a prison for women.
- And we men stayed for four weeks, three or four weeks,
- and were sent to a concentration camp
- in Miranda, which is in the northwestern part of Spain,
- and the concentration camp formerly
- held the anti-Francoist prisoners.
- But they were only now foreigners,
- men in military age, terribly overcrowded.
- Dottie remained in this prison.
- The prison was mostly for prostitutes
- who were illegal in Spain, but they
- were in separate departments.
- And we were-- there were some other refugee
- women who were all together, crammed together
- like sardines at night.
- And the door couldn't open anymore.
- There was 30 or more lying close together
- with all the bright lights on, burning all night.
- And I once received a visit from Mr. Delfo, who
- came with a great gift of two handkerchiefs
- and a few almonds, I think.
- Well.
- [INAUDIBLE]
- A list of all the Dutch subjects in the prison
- was sent to the consulate in Barcelona.
- And eventually, she was let out of the prison after, I think,
- two weeks or so.
- And to send to a little spa in Catalonia.
- Well, originally it had been a hotel.
- It was used as a residential stay.
- Forced residents.
- Residents who were refugees.
- You had to go to the police every day
- and show that you were still there, sign in.
- And we stayed there for about six weeks,
- I think, until one day-- we all had
- written to our consulates, all different nationalities.
- Some were stateless and had really no consulate right.
- But the few women in the group who were from Holland,
- were one day picked up by a representative
- of the Dutch consulate in Barcelona
- and taken out of prison.
- They had worked us behind the stage, so to speak.
- We knew that we were busy for us,
- but we had no idea how long it was going to take.
- So they took us to Barcelona.
- From there, we were shipped to Madrid, just the Dutch women.
- And then they remained there under the protection
- of the Dutch embassy and consulate,
- and got money, were fed, were put up
- in a nice hotel, enclosed, et cetera.
- And meanwhile, the men were sent to Miranda de Ebro.
- And it appeared that Mr. Delfo, who could have helped us
- if he wanted to, didn't do a darn thing,
- because I had been so dumb to tell him
- that we wanted to get to England.
- That is my conclusion.
- He never told me that.
- Anyway, Miranda de Ebro was overcrowded.
- Instead of room for 500, there were 2,400, where
- the conditions were terrible.
- But there was no mistreatment of any kind.
- Finally, Dottie, as soon as she had found her feet
- on the ground, she somehow became
- friendly with the wife of the ambassador,
- and wrote a letter to her.
- And the lady was so impressed by the letter
- that she received that she invited Dottie to come for tea.
- She told her what--
- everything, how we had reached Spain,
- and asked the lady whether she could not do--
- [INAUDIBLE] she could do something for me to get out.
- Actually, I asked for the three.
- Yes, well, I leave this--
- The three women who were in one room together in the hotel.
- I concentrate on--
- And I wrote a letter also in the name of all three of us.
- I concentrate only now on us.
- Yeah, yeah.
- She said, the only thing I can do
- is that your husband can be sent to a military hospital
- in Vitoria, where he will be examined,
- and maybe that he will be declared unfit
- for military service, in which case they would release him.
- She did this.
- And one day I received a call to come to the office of the camp.
- I was told I would go to Vitoria.
- And next day, I was sent there.
- And it was a military hospital.
- I just said that.
- Because I understood Spanish, I didn't
- want to let on that I understood Spanish.
- I was examined, and I faked an injury in my left leg, which
- had been injured years before.
- So I could limp a little bit.
- I understood their conversations,
- and I reacted accordingly.
- In short, I could--
- and do some tricks, and they declared
- me unfit for military service.
- By that time, the ambassador had been
- asked by Queen Wilhelmina in London
- to visit the Dutch subjects in Miranda
- to see how they were doing.
- And Dottie, who had heard from his wife
- that he was going with the first secretary
- to the concentration camp, she said,
- I just heard that my husband is going to be liberated.
- Could his excellency take him along?
- She said, I will tell him.
- That's what happened.
- They came to the camp.
- I was liberated that very same day,
- got into the beautiful limousine in my only suit that--
- In fact, he had a shaven head still.
- I had a shaven head, yes.
- I got into the limousine.
- And on the way back to Madrid, I was sitting next
- to the first secretary.
- I told him the whole story.
- He said, we need people badly in the embassy who know Spanish,
- and you are the first one to come here.
- Could you help?
- I said, gladly.
- I became employed by the Dutch embassy
- to liberate Dutch subjects.
- And I was doing that and became employed.
- We got a very good salary, diplomatic status,
- until after the liberation of France.
- Then the stream of refugees ended,
- and the Dutch government in London was badly in need,
- had wanted us a year before to come over,
- but the embassy delayed our departure
- because I was needed in there.
- We were asked to come over.
- By that time, it was December 1944.
- We got to Lisbon.
- And in Lisbon, we had to wait for an airplane, KLM airplane,
- because the week before Mr. Israel and Leslie Howard
- were shot down.
- So no planes were.
- So the first plane after that, we
- were put on with the two sons of the new Dutch ambassador
- in Paris, small children, and the diplomatic pouch,
- and we were flown to London.
- Almost crashed because of ice on the wings.
- It was a very dangerous flight.
- But we landed in England.
- We were separated again, because we had to go through
- the so-called patriotic school, which was a screening place
- for-
- We didn't expect it.
- At the airport, all of a sudden we
- were whisked away to different places.
- After four or five days we were set free.
- We were both put to work at the Dutch foreign office,
- worked at the Dutch foreign office
- until the end of the war, until the Germans capitulated.
- The foreign office moved back to Holland in August,
- beginning of August 1945.
- And we were taken back to Holland, to Hoek van Holland.
- Unfortunately, we had heard that Dottie's whole family had
- perished, because Eddie had gone back to Amsterdam in 1943
- to fetch his parents and brother,
- and on their way back to Switzerland,
- helped by certain people, they were caught by the Germans,
- sent to Drancy, and from Drancy to Auschwitz,
- Eddie to [NON-ENGLISH],, a Polish coal mine.
- They were all killed.
- I heard from my brother, who was a captain in the British army,
- as soon as he got to Amsterdam, while I was still in London,
- that my father, who had been hidden by Mr. Feits and Mrs.
- Feits, had died of starvation four
- weeks before the liberation.
- That my mother was still alive, barely alive,
- but was getting better.
- And we rejoined my mother after the war,
- who had found an apartment, where
- we lived until we decided to leave Holland for the United
- States in 1949.
- I made it.
- We left out a lot of things, though
- Oh, yes.
- [LAUGHS] Oh yes, but--
Overview
- Interviewee
- Dottie Ringel
Mr. Dolf Ringel - Date
-
interview:
1988 December 07
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Extent
-
2 videocassettes (VHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
The Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College, CUNY
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Dolf Ringel & Dottie Ringel was conducted on December 7, 1988 by the Queensborough Community College Holocaust Resource Center and Archives. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received a copy of the interview in November 1990 and an interviewee release form on April 2, 1991.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:08:57
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512470
Additional Resources
Transcripts (2)
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