Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Print

Oral history interview with Edith Heine

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.832 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0832

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward”

    Oral history interview with Edith Heine
    Transcript
    And tape, and we're recording.
    But we need about 10 seconds for all the tapes
    to get to the correct speed.
    I'll let you know when we're ready to go,
    and Judith will identify everybody in the room.
    Today is Tuesday, April 25, 1995.
    I'm Judith Antelman with the Holocaust Oral History
    Project in San Francisco.
    Today I'm interviewing Edith Heine-Levy, and assisting me
    is interviewer Ellen Szekal.
    Producing is John Grant.
    Edith, I'd like to start with some background questions.
    If you'll tell me first your full name at birth.
    My name at birth was Edith Levy.
    Well, "Livi," if you say your name as Levy.
    And when and where were you born?
    I was born in Amsterdam, in Holland, on July 16, 1938.
    And what are your parents' names?
    My father's name was Leo Levy and my mother's name
    was Erna [? Letko. ?]
    And where were your parents born?
    My parents were born in Germany.
    Do you know in what cities?
    Yes.
    My father in Koblenz, or very close to Koblenz,
    and my mother in Dortmund, in Germany.
    Do you know what year they emigrated to Amsterdam?
    Yes.
    Immediately in 1933.
    And did they ever describe the circumstances under which
    why they decided to move?
    Oh, yes.
    My father warned openly people not only that he was Jewish.
    He also warned many people leave the country soon.
    And it was amazing what he thought
    was that people laughed at him.
    They didn't believe it.
    And of course, he warned and was in the newspapers.
    And so he left immediately.
    And actually they wanted to go further to overseas,
    but for reasons I don't know they couldn't make it.
    And do when he married your mother?
    When they died?
    What year your parents were married.
    My father died in 1968.
    Or-- sorry?
    When your parents were married.
    Oh.
    I found a document yesterday.
    It was '30--
    I think they wrote down '36.
    No.
    '35 or '36.
    So they met in Amsterdam.
    No.
    Let me see.
    That cannot be.
    Yeah.
    I don't know.
    But as a couple they came married together.
    Yeah.
    They came-- no, they didn't come together.
    My father left immediately and my mother
    tried to keep his business.
    They had some employees but the Gestapo came and harassed her
    so she then left a little bit later, a couple of months
    later is what I know.
    What was your father's business?
    He first had a factory in Elberfeld.
    But he didn't like it.
    And he had a smaller business shop, wherever it was.
    He sold items?
    Yes.
    Sold I think it was--
    Clothing?
    Yeah.
    So he left first and she stayed on.
    She tried to keep it for awhile.
    And it wasn't possible.
    Did they ever tell you any experiences
    they had that were directly anti-Semitic experiences
    that they had?
    Yes.
    My mother has these anti-Semitic.
    They put signs on the windows of the shop.
    And I don't know really what they did.
    But it made her life--
    they made it difficult for her so that she couldn't stay.
    That's all what I know.
    Did they ever break the windows?
    I don't know.
    My mother didn't talk about that.
    But she said it was very threatening.
    They were already threatening things.
    But I don't know what.
    Only with the signs that they-- signs
    that this is a Jewish business or something else.
    Do you have any siblings?
    No.
    So they came to--
    and so they came to Amsterdam about '36,
    both of your parents.
    No.
    No, no.
    Immediately when the Nazis got the power, so that was in '33.
    Your father--
    My father first and then my mother couple of months
    later, yeah.
    It was in '33.
    And they started.
    And what did your mother do?
    Did she help your father's--
    My mother helped my father and she worked there.
    And-- yeah.
    What are your earliest memories living in Amsterdam?
    You were born in '38.
    '38, '39.
    Do you recall any sort of tension?
    As a baby, instinctively you're going to--
    Yeah.
    So before the war, I remember my mother put me
    into a home the day over because it was not easy for immigrants
    to be there.
    And also the people didn't believe.
    My father told me he had to go every week or two weeks--
    I don't know anymore--
    to a foreign police, and they said to him,
    it cannot be that bad that you have to be here.
    And they didn't believe it till the Germans occupied Poland
    in '40.
    Then they know.
    But it was very hard, and my mother--
    it was a very poor life.
    We were very poor.
    And even they had money there.
    I didn't know where--
    probably they left everything.
    I have the situation that I cannot ask them for details.
    I can just sometimes guess what was going on, and from there
    what they told me.
    But it was so that my mother--
    what do you say in English-- sew for people to earn some money.
    And so she worked and she put me into her home.
    It was a Jewish home.
    And I have some bad memories because I was so little
    and all the other children were bigger,
    and I didn't feel really good being so little.
    And I was not independent enough there.
    I suffered from it, and I complained, my mother said.
    But that was very little.
    So these are my first memories.
    And then my first memory was when
    the Germans occupied Holland because it was very noisy.
    The area where we lived in in Amsterdam got destroyed.
    The German-- there were a lot of airplanes in the air,
    and I know the Dutch people only tried a couple of days
    to defend themselves, and then they gave up.
    And they shot all these airplanes down,
    and it came down just where we lived.
    And I always had fear when I hear an airplane.
    I run away when I was a child, and I still
    have it in my system because they came down,
    and where we were, the house where we were that got--
    not destroyed, but the other side, the whole part
    of Amsterdam was destroyed.
    So that was my first impression.
    And the next impression was that the Gestapo came to our house.
    And I must have been between two and three years old,
    and that was a bad experience.
    My mother was there, my father, and another couple
    also with the name Levy.
    They were also Jewish.
    And I don't know exactly what happened.
    But they started-- what do you say-
    beating down the other woman, and she started screaming.
    And so there was a fight.
    She defended her-- there were two--
    I always said soldiers, but probably these were always
    Gestapo people, two.
    And so it was a fight and screaming,
    and they throw her into a car.
    And they obviously said something to us
    because from that moment on, we went away from there.
    And my mother told me later they had said, wait here.
    We come and take you later.
    We bring her and wait here.
    We come-- I don't know when.
    And so and then we lived in a very humid and cold cellar
    with rats, and that was a real bad experience.
    And that;s what I remember as my first memories.
    Can you describe the house that you lived in,
    the house that you were born in in Amsterdam?
    Yes.
    It was a very old--
    written on it was N-O 1600.
    So it was a very old house, so with these--how do you say
    in English?
    And my mother always told me that before the war,
    everything was so cheap, and that whole house cost five
    [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]---- or five Gulden, at that time-- rent.
    And the couple who live there, so she
    rented rooms to get some money.
    That was also part of it.
    It was always marmer?
    Is that marmer inside?
    Very old.
    And actually, yeah, it was pretty big.
    It was the Kerkstraat.
    And it's interesting, the yards.
    Later I heard about Anne Frank.
    The Prinsengracht is just--
    the yards get together there.
    So I didn't know her, but that was very same place,
    more or less.
    Center of Amsterdam, yeah.
    Yeah.
    But we were not long there because after this incident
    with the Gestapo, I don't know.
    I think we came back once but then went away from there.
    The home that you were put in, you said you had bad memories.
    Do you remember, did the other kids bother you?
    Did they harass you?
    Do you remember any of that?
    I didn't have contact with other children at that time.
    I had contact when I was more little.
    No, at that time, I don't-- or I don't have memories.
    Judith just asked you about the home that you replaced.
    And you had said previously that you
    had felt it very uncomfortable.
    And I think what Judith meant was
    you were placed in a daycare situation with other children
    where you felt uncomfortable.
    Why did you feel uncomfortable?
    Oh, yeah, but that was only till the Germans occupied.
    So I felt so uncomfortable because all the other children
    could move around and run away.
    And they put me on a table and they fed me
    because I wasn't able to do that myself.
    And that made me feel very uncomfortable.
    And the children laughed.
    That was always--
    I think because I was the smallest one there.
    I really felt terrible.
    Because they were all Jewish, I assume.
    It was a Jewish home, yes.
    No, it was not against me or harassing.
    No, certainly not.
    But I was too little to be in a group with children.
    Yeah.
    My mother told me later I always complained
    that there was a such fat woman who feeds me,
    and I didn't like that.
    So that was all.
    It was very harmless.
    It was before the war.
    Did you ever ask your mother or father
    why they put you in that daycare home?
    No.
    We never talked about why.
    I think because my mother had to work was probably--
    my father brought me every day there.
    And I came home in the afternoon or evening.
    As a little baby up until two years old,
    do you remember instinctively feeling your parents' fear
    or anxiety?
    You know, as a child, you have happiness around you
    and different experiences.
    But it didn't seem to be a normal childhood.
    Do you remember feeling--
    The only feeling I remember was that my mother was very tense.
    I didn't like that.
    And she was also--
    yeah.
    I think I have memories.
    Yeah, she felt very tense.
    And I couldn't do anything.
    I was too little.
    And then she was very--
    I don't know how to explain it.
    Probably, when I look at it today, it
    was certainly not easy for her to have a child at such a time.
    They know that the Germans are at the door.
    They know that.
    Didn't make it any more to what they wanted, to get here.
    So there must be tension.
    There must have been tension.
    Do you remember anything positive
    during those first two years, again, purely instinctively?
    No.
    Unfortunately, no.
    You talked about the Gestapo coming, when the Nazis occupied
    Amsterdam in 1940.
    Can you recall anything about that experience?
    The sounds of the boots marching, guns shooting,
    any scenes that stand out through a baby's eyes?
    Do you mean in the beginning or in general?
    In the beginning.
    In the very beginning when the Nazis came into Amsterdam.
    So in general, there were always noisy and shouting and so.
    But in the beginning I remember another violent situation.
    I don't know exactly what happened.
    But we went back to this place.
    And obviously my father was there,
    and the Gestapo was kicking the door in.
    And my mother and I came there, and my father
    was climbing over the roof.
    And they were at the door trying to get in.
    And we talked about the situation
    because my father said the Dutch people around saw that.
    And no one said, he's on the roof.
    And he said, if we had been in Germany, they would have said,
    he's on the roof.
    So that was why they kicked in the door.
    But I don't remember noise at that time.
    When did that happen, do you recall?
    That must have been before I was three years old.
    So between two and three years.
    That was in-- you mean the year?
    19-- was born '38.
    For year I don't that.
    Yeah, I was in the middle.
    '92.
    Yeah, '92.
    '42.
    Sorry, '42.
    Yeah.
    Do you remember anything else about the Nazis
    coming in to Amsterdam?
    Do you remember a lot of commotion, fear?
    No, I had never fear.
    You mean emotions?
    Emotions or thoughts or scenes.
    No, as far as I remember, I had never fear, even
    in the worst situation.
    And I just felt very miserable because
    of having no food over long periods,
    or very bad food, or malnutrition and no nutrition.
    And that felt bad.
    And also I felt a lot.
    The only feeling I had and suffered from was compassion.
    I had compassion, often, with my parents and with people around.
    But no other feelings.
    At least I cannot remember.
    I don't think I had any feelings.
    I numbed myself out because--
    you say numbed out in English?
    Numbed myself out.
    Even later after the war, I was still emotionless.
    Emotionless.
    Yeah.
    I can be that also today sometimes.
    But I am in touch with my feelings, actually, in general.
    But if it's something that's very critical I--
    not always, but very often I can.
    I think that was protection to survive.
    Only my compassion, that was painful.
    I suffered from it.
    Compassion people did there.
    At that time do you recall any other family members--
    grandparents, aunts, cousins, uncles that lived in Amsterdam,
    were they experiencing any sort of anti-Semitic attacks?
    Where they fleeing?
    Yeah.
    So I have never seen relatives.
    There were no relatives because my parents were the only ones
    who went to Amsterdam.
    So we didn't have any relatives there.
    And others, they were all in the camps.
    One uncle was in Auschwitz, but I
    think he must have been before '41, something like '39 or '40
    that he got to Shanghai.
    So he emigrated to Shanghai.
    And yeah, most of them died in the camps.
    22 relatives died in the camps and gas chambers.
    And so I have never had a family relative around.
    So other children had aunts and grandparents,
    and I didn't have that.
    We were very isolated, my parents too.
    Later, did you ever ask your parents,
    did they consider leaving Amsterdam?
    I know you said that they wanted to keep going.
    Did you ever talk about that more with them?
    Yes.
    My father always told me, he always said we have to go on.
    We cannot stay in Holland.
    And it's not far enough away.
    But we did not really talk about Holocaust and the situation,
    or they didn't talk with me.
    They anyway thought, oh, she was only a child.
    And I should be happy that I wasn't in a camp
    and in a gas chamber, that I didn't die in a gas chamber.
    That was what my mother said, I should be happy
    because I didn't look happy.
    I was very serious when I was a child, and very skinny.
    And she tells me that I should be lucky,
    but it didn't work, certainly.
    But we never talked about real details.
    Only I got something that my father,
    that we had to go further.
    But they didn't make it and I really don't know why.
    I heard here that people had difficulties to get a visa
    and whatever.
    So they didn't make it.
    And in 1940, I don't know then it was impossible
    when the Germans were there.
    And you couldn't get out anymore.
    But they certainly wanted to.
    That's what I know, why they didn't make it out.
    You mentioned before the woman that the Gestapo came in,
    and they beat her and took her away.
    Were your neighbors Jewish?
    Were you in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood?
    I don't know that.
    I only know that these two people, a man and a woman,
    a couple, that they were Jewish and that they beat her--
    beat, beat, beat her down, and that they wanted to take us.
    They didn't wait for them.
    Did you see any other people being beaten up?
    Yeah, that was later.
    I saw-- very later, I was older already.
    And I don't know what was going on, really.
    I was on the streets.
    And again, two Gestapo men were hitting a woman.
    And because when the war ended, I was almost seven years old.
    So I don't know what age I had.
    And I didn't know what is a pregnant woman,
    but she certainly was pregnant because I
    thought she had such a big distending stomach.
    She was very big.
    But I didn't know that.
    And they kicked her with their boots and hit her.
    It was so terrible.
    I only remember that there was a lot of blood,
    and I disappeared.
    But it was had something going on that was pretty much
    terrible for me.
    I mean, it's just all these things
    I saw made me more or less speechless, made me very still
    and speechless.
    And I was the same after the war.
    I could not speak.
    I did not speak.
    I didn't know how to talk.
    And people ask me things.
    And I didn't talk till I was 10 or 11.
    I don't talk.
    I couldn't talk.
    That was not over after the war, unfortunately.
    But there was no one who told me.
    So the transition from a life in hiding and all these unnatural
    situations, and then suddenly going
    to school in a normal life.
    I didn't know how to do that.
    And there was no one.
    My parents were very broken people, and I didn't know.
    So they were so busy with themselves and relatives,
    and it was depressing and very hard to have fun.
    So I was very on my own.
    And whenever someone approached me,
    I run away, children or teachers.
    And sometimes every day they caught me, the teachers,
    because I just run away when they approached me.
    I was afraid of everyone.
    And they didn't know what was going on with me,
    and they punished me.
    And I had no support.
    There was no family, only these two very broken people.
    So it was also [INAUDIBLE]
    What do you mean by broken?
    Elaborate on that.
    What does that mean?
    I
    I'm broken.
    I don't know whether I can say they were depressed,
    but something like that.
    They were-- my father, who must have been a very alert
    and active man, a very sophisticated man, he was--
    it was a kind of paralysis that they had.
    And also that the Jewish community in Amsterdam
    did everything that they wanted to go here.
    Then after the war, my father learned a new job with--
    what was the name?
    It was [NON-ENGLISH].
    And they obviously were afraid.
    My father was old, when I was born, over 50.
    My mother was almost 40.
    So they were over 50 and over 60 years old.
    And they must have been very--
    they left life before the war.
    What they told me, they had really a nice life.
    And they were--
    I mean, my mother was always sick.
    I had to take care of her.
    And she always said, people are so bad, you don't believe that.
    And my father didn't talk much.
    It was not real family situation.
    So I felt sorry for them.
    I felt very sorry because I saw they were--
    both of them had problems and didn't know
    how to handle my life, really.
    This brokenness, it's difficult for me
    to express that in English.
    So there is no real--
    yeah, I think depression is the right word.
    Buried in all the things that happened.
    One sister-- one sister of my father
    came back from a camp crippled.
    She couldn't go the stairs anymore, only backwards.
    And it was also a pretty bad experience to meet her.
    And she died very soon when she came back from camp.
    I don't remember which camp it was.
    So it was depressing.
    And then my parents went to Germany.
    My father had a house, his parents' house.
    And when he came back, Germany had taken it and sold it.
    And he said no.
    And it took-- I don't know, it took so long to get it back.
    And it was also difficult. My father took me to Germany
    when I was 12 years old.
    And in the town where the house was,
    and he looked around there.
    And suddenly the German people--
    I was afraid of the Germans.
    I felt terrible to go to Germany.
    But they suddenly fell on their knees
    and made a cross when they saw me.
    And I was 12 years old.
    It was very strange.
    And my father said they took away the land around the house
    and they stole everything.
    And he said, and you look like--
    my father had five sisters--
    he said I had a little bit from everyone.
    So obviously they didn't know who I was.
    It felt miserable for me to go there as a child into Germany.
    But that was all very depressing for my parents.
    But that was already after the war.
    Were you able to talk to your aunt at all, the one who died,
    the one who was so sick?
    My aunt, yes.
    Yes.
    I visited her at different times.
    But we never talked about her, unfortunately.
    It's really a pity that I wasn't able to do that.
    And she, obviously, neither.
    Probably she talked with my father about it.
    I don't know.
    But she didn't talk with me about--
    we talked about music.
    We played piano-- not with her, but with her husband.
    She was lucky and had a very nice husband.
    But no, we never talked about the Holocaust when I met her.
    I met her.
    And she was an actress from-- she showed me.
    So more of these things were past.
    And so her way was nicer.
    Yes, it's pity that we didn't talk after the war.
    Which is?
    Were you able to talk to your parents
    about why they decided to move to Germany after the war?
    Yes.
    Yes.
    I didn't want to go.
    I was 15 years old, or between 14 and 15.
    And I said, I don't go there.
    I cannot.
    When I heard German, made me nervous.
    I was afraid of the Germans and of Germany.
    And they said one day, we are going there.
    And I said, not with me.
    And I tried to stay in Holland.
    At that time, with 21, you were an adult. So they told me,
    you don't have to do what your parents want when you were 21.
    And I could not understand that my parents went back.
    And I really could not understand that at that time.
    And they were not happy.
    They were very unhappy then later.
    And I went to my mother, I said, how could you go back here?
    And I had all the trouble there because I
    was so afraid of them.
    And she said, your father was the one who wanted to go back.
    And then I went to my father and said,
    why did you want to go back?
    And he said, no, it was your mother.
    So they blamed each other, and I could never figure it
    out who it really was.
    But it was a mistake for many reasons, I think.
    I'm going to go back a little bit to the war.
    Did you see roundups outside your window or in the street?
    Yes, yes.
    Yeah.
    You have six blocks in Amsterdam.
    They closed that, and then they searched
    through all the houses.
    And we had neighbors there.
    That was another place, now, later, not the first place.
    Actually, I lived in countless places.
    But there I was together with my parents.
    And there were neighbor children and all over Jewish people
    hidden in the houses.
    But no one came back.
    And sometimes I saw these children.
    I had contact with them for a while.
    And I saw how they brought them.
    I think these were green cars where they bought them,
    and they never came back and no one came back.
    And the roundups, I know that once
    I lived in family, another family.
    And they were not Jewish but they helped Jewish people.
    And he worked in the underground and helped.
    And I lived in the family probably two or three times,
    and it was a very good experience for me.
    It was a very normal family and people were nice.
    I didn't have such an experience.
    It was really good.
    There was warmth.
    But unfortunately was not long.
    And one day, the Gestapo--
    I don't know what they did.
    Was very noisy always when they came.
    And there was a woman, a man, and three children,
    twin my age.
    And I don't know where they were.
    But I fled with him, again, over such a small roof.
    It was very small and very scary.
    And Gestapo, we were surrounded by Gestapo.
    And he helped me to balance over this roof.
    And I don't know how it happened.
    He really helped me to do that.
    He was very concentrated and focused on me.
    And they caught him.
    They caught him.
    And I escaped.
    And it was so that they dragged him into a concentration camp
    because he became a very famous writer after the war.
    He's very famous in Holland.
    And he wrote a book about his time, among other books,
    about this time in the concentration camps.
    So that was one experience.
    And also, another place.
    I was with my parents again when they knocked.
    There was no electricity and all that didn't work and so on.
    But they always, how do you say, bumped or knocked.
    And if you didn't open the door they just
    kicked the windows in, in all hours, whatever it was.
    These were the roundups.
    And they kicked them in and were always--
    I always thought that the Dutch people were starving or dying
    on the streets and all over because there was no food.
    The Germans tried to starve out Amsterdam.
    And they appeared to me very fat and strong.
    And I thought that's why they could kick in the doors.
    And we hid sometimes below the floor when they did that.
    I don't know how.
    There was wooden, what is that?
    Planks?
    Yeah.
    Which you could take away.
    And I don't know how they did that, with something over it.
    I don't know how it was.
    But we were standing in water sometimes because there
    was Amsterdam is built on piles, and there's often water.
    But again, I only had compassion with the other people there.
    I was not really--
    I don't know.
    I probably numbed myself out totally.
    But these were very uncomfortable. situations.
    So when you say that you numbed yourself out,
    you had compassion for other people,
    are you saying you did not feel personal fear?
    No personal fear.
    I cannot remember that, never.
    I got fearful later in my life.
    I got fear--oh god--
    but not at that time.
    Yes.
    I was so fearful in Germany, and it never really disappeared.
    Even I studied there and I had very interesting jobs.
    Even my best friend are German now.
    It is something.
    never really disappeared.
    But I didn't have fear at that time.
    Sure, it was a little scary over the roof,
    and there were scary situations.
    But at least I don't remember any fear.
    I would certainly remember it.
    I wanted to ask you more about the boy that
    held you over the roof.
    How did you wind up with this family,
    with this boy that helped you?
    How did you get to that house?
    Yeah.
    He was at that time a journalist in Amsterdam,
    a big Dutch newspaper.
    And they worked in the underground.
    And he was a very good friend already
    before all that started, though they were very good friends.
    And they took me to their house because there were times
    we didn't have to eat anything.
    And I found myself in different houses, actually,
    countless places.
    I don't recall them, but this was
    one I recall because it was the only nice experience I had.
    They were nice to me.
    The twins were my age.
    And I was really part of the family.
    Only when visitors came and I could not appear.
    That made me feel bad.
    But it was really a little experience
    of something normal and warmth and friendly people.
    And so it was very good.
    It was not long, I think.
    Yes.
    What was the journalist's name?
    His name is Eddie [? Hornig, ?] yeah.
    Eddie [? Hornig. ?] He died a couple of years ago.
    But he wrote a lot of books, and also about the war,
    and one especially about his camp experiences.
    The first time the Gestapo came to your house,
    why did they take you?
    Do you recall what was that situation?
    You mean the first time that they hit the woman?
    When they hit the woman, they said they'll be back for you.
    Yes.
    That's why we escaped.
    I don't know.
    I mean, they often said to people, and I heard later--
    I don't know.
    I was too little, probably, and I just saw this situation
    that we had to go into another place, which was really bad.
    But I don't know why they didn't take us.
    Perhaps they were so busy with the woman.
    I can only guess.
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    But they must have said they are coming back and take you.
    Stay here and wait and be ready.
    So that was obviously set, but later.
    Did you ever ask your parents, how
    did you achieve movement from house to house?
    Did you have to wear armbands?
    Or you disguised yourself?
    That is very strange that I don't know.
    I remember there were different situations where
    we had nothing to eat anymore.
    And I couldn't get up anymore.
    I could not get up.
    You get weak, you have nothing to eat,
    or sometimes very strange things.
    But I cannot recall at the moment, and I thought about it,
    how I suddenly found myself being in another family.
    I don't know.
    I know that I found myself in a family I didn't like.
    They were not very nice, but they gave me food.
    And I was starving and I was very sick.
    I was sick because I had no food and then found myself
    in families and was dead sick because of their food.
    Sounds crazy, but these were different situations.
    But I never know how I got there.
    I really don't know.
    I know that once, men on a bicycle--
    there were no cars or anything-- on a bicycle.
    And these bicycles didn't have real tires, which are soft.
    And I hang on this bicycle because I could not walk.
    And he brought me somewhere.
    And it was terrible because all these shocks,
    and that's the only thing I remember.
    I don't know why I got there, got back and forth, got around.
    There I have no memory at the moment of this.
    When you say you couldn't get up and you couldn't walk,
    can you explain that more?
    Were people carrying you at some point?
    You said that you couldn't get up and you couldn't walk.
    Were you carried?
    People taking you?
    No, I remember I lie down, and it was scary for me
    because everything was spinning and I was too weak to get up.
    That happened different times.
    I think I was very sick and couldn't
    go to get for medical help.
    I only know that I saw my mother there once,
    and she didn't even look at me anymore.
    I think I was really starving and dying.
    I don't know.
    I really don't know.
    Also, when we had the liberation, my father and I,
    we couldn't walk.
    We were too weak.
    We couldn't go through the door.
    But it became better very soon.
    We got a care package here from America with clothes.
    And I remember that was such a white bread, very white.
    And the pineapples, I never forget that, in cans.
    And god, it was so special.
    They only gave us-- probably they knew--
    only little pieces.
    And it was also sad because we got a very little piece
    of this white bread and the crumbs on the floor,
    my father crawled to take the crumbs, we were so hungry.
    Yeah.
    Yeah.
    It was already for the Dutch people difficult to get food,
    and especially when you could not exist to the outside world.
    That was even worse if--
    yeah.
    And so they were harsh conditions in Amsterdam.
    They closed it with water to that nothing could come in
    and nothing could go out.
    I don't know why they wanted to starve out the people.
    I heard that later.
    People were starving all over, all over.
    And they brought all the dead people.
    They didn't have caskets, of course,
    so they brought them on such wooden-- what is that-- karts--
    karts, all over around us.
    And they fell down on the street.
    And they had foam, yellow foam.
    I don't know what it was, but that was my impression happened
    to people.
    And we were very close to that.
    Can you tell us, on a day-to-day basis in the different hiding
    places that you were, I'm going to start with this family that
    was warm, the journalist.
    What did you do?
    How did you pass time?
    Were you able to go outside?
    No, I don't remember that I went outside.
    But I remember that Eddie [? Hornig ?] was
    every morning working on his desk, and I sat under his desk
    like a dog, and I loved it.
    It was a good time.
    He was just writing, and I was under such a desk.
    That's the only thing I remember,
    and it felt good, too.
    And I was very isolated most of the time, and the twins,
    they had a very big bed, and I slept in the middle.
    That gave me such a feeling of warmth.
    And that was also nice.
    And every-- food and so, and they taught me how to eat,
    was also nice.
    So these were nice experiences.
    But I don't remember ever going out on the street and so.
    I don't remember.
    Only the thing with the--
    Tape here.
    No criticism, but I lived in Europe.
    You criticize people much more.
    You people are so polite, really.
    In Germany, they tell you immediately,
    you look so terrible today.
    You people, I feel terrible, but they say, oh, you look so nice.
    It is nicer, but it is very extremely opposite.
    People are two-faced here.
    Yeah, it's all over the same, I think.
    What was your question, Steve?
    People are more polite.
    Yeah.
    You were mentioning before the occupation, your homes,
    your home and Anne Frank's home were sort of adjacent?
    Yes, for three years.
    Well, my parents lived there already before it along,
    but I have been there, too.
    I was three years old.
    That was the gardens, the yard of the Prinsengracht,
    where Anne Frank was hidden.
    And the yards of our houses were together.
    And was the same height so we were really neighbors there.
    And did your families know each other?
    No.
    No.
    No, we didn't know.
    Just after the war, I heard that Anne Frank,
    that the house were there.
    Well, she before she moved to the Annex, which
    was across town, actually, where her father's warehouse was,
    she lived in a complex, a fairly new complex with her family.
    Yeah.
    And I think that's the place that you're referring to.
    What is the name of the place?
    You're much better at pronouncing names.
    What was the name of the--
    Prinsengracht.
    No, that's the road I believe she lived on.
    They were hidden there.
    Oh, they were hidden there?
    I think so, yes.
    Yeah.
    So I never read Anne Frank because I slowly,
    slowly started reading about the Holocaust.
    I never could do it.
    So Anne Frank, I just know that they
    lived there and had their house there, or their place,
    the whole family.
    That's all I know.
    Could look it up now.
    Yeah.
    But that was the place where we also got caught.
    I'm talking about this.
    And I think they went there--
    I don't know the year.
    Where she got caught in the Annex
    was right next to the river.
    Yeah.
    Right on the river.
    We call it gracht.
    And here was the street with what you call a river.
    And the next street was the street where we lived.
    And the yards, they connected.
    Yes, yes.
    But we didn't know them at that time because no one knew.
    And if you got out for whatever reason--
    you had a false name or there were different names,
    there were different things, how to hide that you didn't exist--
    you could not exist to the outside world.
    Yeah.
    You mentioned something that I'd like
    to mention on camera, how you felt
    when you said that you were being
    carried from place to place.
    You talked about a boat and how you had to be alert.
    Oh, yes.
    I mean, I we talked about a book.
    And the HaShoah group, the group for Holocaust survivors,
    we meet twice a month.
    And we talked about the book, and they
    wrote about, among other things, also
    mentioned the hidden children, and said oh, they
    are all robots because they had to be quiet.
    They had to do.
    And I remember sure, yes, I was kind of robot.
    I run away from everyone and there were different things,
    that partly I acted like a robot,
    but partly you had to be very alert.
    There were situations like the situation with the roof where
    you really had to act.
    So also, it depends how the situation was
    and what was going on.
    I don't know whether I answered your question,
    or how I felt with the different families, sorry.
    No, you answered it.
    How you felt being moved every few weeks or few months,
    what that constant on the run, in hiding felt like.
    So that since that time I'm running around all
    over the world, and really from one country to the other,
    from one place to the other, I have run away
    reflects probably from that time.
    But I had no feelings at that time.
    I didn't think about it.
    And I just found myself again in another situation,
    again with other people, then with my parents, then--
    it was just normal daily life for me.
    I didn't know any better.
    It was not pleasant.
    I suffered from cold.
    I had no shoes.
    I have just cloth wrapped around my feet
    during very cold winter times, temperatures
    around zero Celsius and under zero,
    so it was very cold and humid.
    That was all unpleasant that I suffer from it.
    But these changes from there to there and there.
    I don't recall any feelings, and I
    think I didn't have any feelings because it was just daily life.
    Later I got feelings about it, much later,
    especially when I came to this country
    because I lived a long time in Germany and studied there
    and worked there.
    And I had built up, it made it clear
    when I came here, a kind of defense.
    I always wanted not to show them that I suffered.
    I did a lot of exercise to be fit
    and to where I could handle my life exaggerated.
    But I never wanted to show the German people how I really
    felt. And that was a defense mechanism.
    Almost my entire life I kept this.
    And here it was actually the first time
    that I had safe feeling.
    And here I got flooded with memories
    when I came to this country.
    And they called it post-traumatic stress disorder.
    I've never heard about it.
    It was very strange for me because I came here
    to start a new life.
    So it was a little bit shocking.
    We are now in the present of--sorry.
    Do you recall being away from your parents
    during your time in hiding?
    And if so, how did that feel?
    No feelings.
    I don't recall any feelings.
    I mean, there were people like Eddie [? Hornig's ?] family
    and so where I felt wonderful, and it was over very soon,
    too soon.
    But there were other families where I didn't feel good.
    They just had food, and I didn't feel good.
    But I was not longing for my parents.
    I think that I never attached to my parents, never ever.
    And I thought about it when I was eight years old,
    after the war with that, and I went to a Jewish school.
    And we went for a trip for two weeks in a home in the forest.
    Was a wonderful experience for me.
    And I was so happy, that forest and being there.
    So I loved going there.
    And all the other children were crying
    that they had to separate from their parents.
    And I thought, my gosh, they cannot even be happy.
    So obviously, it had a lot of advantages
    not to be touched because my parents were too
    burdened themselves.
    They could not really-- and it has also advantages.
    It sounds crazy, but it is obviously true.
    Yeah.
    Along those same lines, I'm just so curious how you had no fear,
    and you're a little girl and watching all
    of these extraordinary scenes.
    Did you feel that you were almost detached, as
    if you were watching a movie?
    Or did you ever feel that you were in the movie?
    I was detached.
    You were watching?
    Yeah.
    I was not really detached because I don't know,
    I think I could be detached because my feelings--
    the confession was really so painful.
    Also after the war, I always suffered
    with people who had to suffer.
    I suffered my parents had to go through,
    but I didn't suffer about myself,
    perhaps also because my parents said,
    oh, you were only a child.
    And so there was not even a chance
    to think that I had to suffer with them.
    Yeah, the cold and the starving and all that.
    But I don't know.
    I really don't know what happened.
    I think that something--
    yeah, it might be the word detached is probably--
    at least parts of me detached from it
    because it was a survivor to survivor.
    Otherwise, if I had all the feelings which you usually
    have, I would not be here anymore.
    It could be.
    Yes, I'm sure.
    Do you recall any of what, as an adult,
    you could think back and interpret as abuse?
    Oh, yes, yes, it was very abusive, I think,
    the violent treatment.
    Were you treated at any of these homes
    with any kind of physical, emotional, sexual,
    or verbal abuse?
    No.
    I cannot remember that people were that bad to me.
    I didn't like some of them because they gave me
    food and food and food, and I was sick,
    and they wanted me to get some--
    what they say?
    Meat.
    meat on my bones.
    But I don't remember that anyone was really bad to me or abusive
    or so, just distant, some were very distant.
    No, I don't remember that.
    And I sometimes thought about it.
    There was only when we went the first time to the cellar,
    there was an old woman.
    Obviously she was the owner.
    I don't know, really.
    And we lived in a dark, cold, humid cellar.
    All over were rats.
    And I loved the rats, by the way.
    But now I know that it is not so pleasant.
    Yeah, I really loved them, but that is another issue.
    But these were companions for me.
    And I even had, with one rat, really a nice relationship,
    certainly, until my mother saw that.
    She wasn't [MUMBLING] Yeah, that is really another issue.
    But it was cold there and dark, and it was unpleasant.
    And this old woman, when I think back,
    I was too little to know what she said or did.
    But I saw that she hated me.
    And there was a feeling that she didn't want me to be there.
    And whenever I meet a woman who looks a little like--
    I discovered that recently-- then I
    get these terrible feelings as if she was it.
    She didn't want me there.
    My parents, yes, but not me.
    And she was against me, for what reasons ever, I don't know.
    So that was a very bad experience.
    But I think, as far as I recall, there
    were not people who abused me.
    Just that some were distant and cold, and some were nice.
    Well, conversely, do you recall tenderness and hugs and kisses?
    Not at all.
    Neither from my parents, nor--
    No.
    My real best contact I had with animals, with the rats first,
    and there was a cat, a real intense relationship.
    And there was no one.
    Can you elaborate more about your relationship
    with the rats, your first encounter with the rats, how
    you developed?
    I don't know how that happened.
    But there was one rat where I really played with him.
    And I only remember that there were stairs a little down,
    and I met this rat there, I don't know, probably every day.
    I don't know that anymore.
    And my mother later told me that I told her
    that I had met a wonderful being with wonderful eyes.
    And one day she went with me there and saw this big rat,
    and she was so shocked.
    And from that time on, she must have said terrible things
    and I was afraid of rats.
    And I also felt she destroyed a good relationship.
    So I really felt, ugh, yeah, because it
    was a relationship for me, one of my first relationships.
    So animals play a real big role in my life.
    And it was good, I think.
    It was very good--helpful because I could hug these
    animals.
    Not the rat.
    I didn't know that they could be dangerous.
    My mother said they could kill me and bite me.
    And so I was suddenly afraid.
    I had a similar experience right now.
    There is a little baby squirrel that
    comes into my house every day, and I talk with her,
    and she gets a peanut or something else.
    And a man came and said they could have rabies.
    And that's why I remembered this rat thing
    because I'm now so afraid.
    Did you not remember the rat until the baby squirrel
    incident, when the man told you about the squirrel?
    Yes, yes.
    It was just now, this year.
    Right now, here.
    I moved here to Oakland in an apartment.
    And this baby squirrel came eight weeks ago into my house.
    And she's sitting on my sofa, and I feed her.
    And the men were helping in the house
    to unpack some things were so shocked.
    And then I relived the whole situation
    with my mother and the rat, and they are a little bit similar.
    And I have a real nice communication
    with this little squirrel.
    So first I backed away, just gave food on the balcony.
    But now I let her in again.
    She's again on the sofa.
    You had another friend?
    Yes.
    Before your mother came in and scared you, what kind of games
    did you play with the rat?
    I actually don't remember that.
    I was very close with the rat.
    Perhaps I kissed the rat.
    I was very close.
    That I remember.
    The rat was very tame.
    The others didn't.
    Similar with the squirrel.
    All the other squirrels are looking, and she is tame.
    But I don't, really, what I did.
    Long games because I was very busy with the rat.
    But I don't recall that.
    Do you remember, did you feed it if you had some food?
    Did you ever--
    I don't think so that I fed it.
    I don't know.
    I just had the feeling that I liked this being,
    and whatever was going on, like the squirrel, I'm sitting,
    I talk to the squirrel.
    And most of the time it runs in that way.
    No, it's too long ago.
    But it felt not good when she destroyed that.
    That was painful I was very angry at her, or not angry,
    but I felt desperate about this, she had done that.
    I can understand it today.
    But at that time, I couldn't.
    It was your friend.
    Yes, yes.
    Was that in the cellar of your first house?
    Yes, that was in the cellar, yeah.
    It was a cellar, and then it went even deeper, something.
    Was very dark in there and lots of rats.
    But not all were tame like this one.
    Could you talk about your first hiding place, if you remember,
    how you got there?
    You mean in other families?
    When you had to leave your house after the Gestapo
    beat up the couple and took them away,
    and then your family fled.
    Do you remember if people took you to your first hiding place.
    That was a cellar.
    That was the cellar in your house.
    No, it was another place.
    We went away from that house because the Gestapo
    had said they will take us.
    We should wait for them.
    And some people did that, by the way.
    I heard that in the meantime.
    But it didn't, and this old woman was the owner,
    or gave us the cellar, who didn't like me.
    And it was obvious, I remember.
    And I don't know how we got there.
    But we were suddenly in this environment.
    Was this old woman Jewish?
    I don't even know that, yeah.
    Do you suspect this is the reason you left?
    Left what?
    The cellar.
    Might this have been the reason that you
    moved on to a new hiding place because of this woman?
    I don't think-- I don't know because I had nothing to say.
    I was very little.
    I only remember these feelings, these strong feelings,
    that there were feelings toward this woman,
    and negative feelings, with the rat and all
    that happened at that time.
    But not why we then went to other hiding places.
    That I don't know.
    When you were in the cellar, do you
    remember how you slept with your beds?
    Or--
    Yeah.
    It was very cold there on the floor,
    and I know it was very uncomfortable.
    There were no beds.
    And I only know it was very uncomfortable
    and cold and dark.
    And that atmosphere with this woman in addition.
    So it felt-- I have just this memory of--
    I thought about it, really, because of the squirrel.
    It's interesting, but such things
    trigger sometimes memories.
    But that's all I remember because I was very small.
    I couldn't talk with my parents about it.
    I don't know.
    Do you remember a bathroom or showers or a bath?
    This house where we first lived in, they didn't have bathrooms.
    It was built in 16th century.
    I think it was a house.
    So it was very nice house, very old.
    In the cellar there was--
    I don't remember any--
    I don't think they had something like that.
    I don't know.
    Then we were in the house.
    There was-- yeah, there was a bath and then not.
    I don't know how that was.
    There was not even soap during the war
    because I remember after the war,
    they had sent me a substitute.
    So it was wonderful, but it was not even soap, though.
    I also learned, when I lived in other families,
    I don't remember.
    In most of these homes, were you in the cellar?
    In most of these homes that you stayed in,
    did you live in the cellar?
    No.
    No.
    I lived in families that were normal homes.
    And with my parents, we lived in a house,
    and we went below the floor when they
    searched through the houses.
    There was not a cellar.
    There was just sometimes water.
    So we-- yeah.
    But it was a part that we survived.
    We escaped.
    They were searching and stomping with their boots
    through the house, and we were below the floor.
    But the cellar, I call it cellar because you went down
    to this room, and it was a very dark room
    without windows and all that.
    Did these cellars connect from house to house,
    or were they self-contained within each?
    In other words, I know that you had said that the city was
    built on pyres.
    Piles, yeah.
    Amsterdam is built on piles, yeah.
    Yeah.
    So does that mean that these so-called cellars
    were connected, actually, or?
    No.
    No.
    No.
    These were separate rooms.
    So every house had some or not.
    How many times did you have to go under the floor?
    Do you remember about how many times
    and how many different places did
    you have to go under the floor?
    Yeah, there was one place where we
    went below the floor I don't know how often.
    I don't know.
    I only remember that I felt so sorry for my father.
    So therefore I didn't feel sorry for myself.
    I don't know why.
    But I didn't know how often.
    But it was frequently because the German searched
    through the houses frequently, and very often
    during nighttime, so very-- without a warning or so,
    suddenly they were there.
    How did you know it was time to go under the floor?
    You heard a knock on the door?
    I think the noises, because they searched
    through all the houses, and they were very noisy, noisy
    and shouting and kicking in.
    I heard later that they even went with, what is it,
    a bayonet or--
    where you saw all kinds of things,
    thinking that people were hiding all over
    in so many different places, and they knew that.
    And they were all noisy.
    I always had the feeling they are so noisy.
    I always thought when I was a child,
    because they have so much food, and they can be so energetic.
    At the time that the Gestapo was searching
    when you heard the clinking of the boots,
    did you ever feel fear during this point?
    Yeah, there was also a noise that they stopped the cars
    in front of the houses.
    I don't really remember how I felt
    when I was in this situation because they were always
    stopping cars, and then searching through the houses.
    But I know later, when I lived in Germany,
    and I heard a car stop-- even sometimes I have it
    right now also.
    But there it was-- in Germany very bad.
    I was trembling.
    And I knew it has to do with my experiences.
    I think this fear came later.
    That's what I think.
    I don't remember any fear.
    But there must have been something like that.
    I really don't know how that works.
    In The Diary of Anne Frank, the sirens
    is that ever present sound that elicits so much fear.
    Do you recall a siren of the trucks coming to pick people
    up, do you recall?
    There was a siren?
    Sort of a siren.
    What would that be?
    Like a whistle, a shriek.
    No.
    A sound that a police car would make in warning to say they
    were on their way.
    They warned people?
    In the movie, Anne Frank's drama was going on inside.
    And in the background all the time you'd
    hear the trucks coming and going and the siren, the police
    siren, illustrating the fact that people were constantly
    being picked up.
    And actually, the way the movie ends is the siren
    comes and it doesn't go.
    It stops.
    And that's how she knew that the truck was there to pick her up.
    So my question is, do you recall any sounds?
    No, no sirens.
    Sounds.
    No, I don't recall that, siren.
    No.
    No.
    Why did they never find you?
    Why did they find all these other people?
    Why did they find Anne Frank, and why not you?
    Was like this.
    I mean, it was just--
    we often were very close to get caught,
    very close in different situations.
    There were countless situations.
    It was partly luck, I think, or how does it go?
    Partly I think people gave up.
    When the Gestapo came they said, here I
    am because they couldn't stand the situation anymore
    in isolation.
    And I know that people did that.
    And I think if it had--
    what do you say in English-- had gone longer,
    what would you say?
    Continue?
    Had continued, probably I would not sit here
    because it was unbearable.
    It is probably partly luck, partly being alert,
    partly you want to survive.
    I don't know why you want to survive.
    I really have to think about it because--
    and all over they were caught, it's
    true, in our district there and other districts.
    It was really not easy to survive.
    And some people survived.
    Yes, sure.
    What were some of the situations in which you almost got caught?
    When they broke in.
    So when they broke into the house and were violent.
    And you say [GERMAN] in German, [GERMAN],, it was just--
    or when we just hid below the floor,
    and they didn't know where we were,
    or the situation with the roof for example,
    was also very critical.
    And my father alone had some critical situations
    where he talked about and--
    it was just--yeah.
    I cannot really give an answer.
    You said Nazis came in and they were violent.
    Did they throw things around?
    Did they--
    No.
    They kicked the doors down.
    If people didn't open the door, they were noisy.
    But they went [GERMAN] open the door.
    And if people didn't open the door, you heard that all over.
    They kicked in the doors.
    So they must have been very strong because the doors were
    real stable in Amsterdam.
    I don't know how they did that.
    Big boots.
    Yeah, they had boots and so.
    Was there ever a situation where you heard their car outside
    and you couldn't get to the cellar?
    I know that there was a car and they picked up the children,
    our neighbor's children.
    These were Jewish children.
    They were very impatient and very bad,
    and they never came back, and also their parents.
    We saw that sometimes.
    Was a hole or a window or so.
    I don't know why they didn't come to us or that we escaped,
    whatever, hide, hid.
    Was there ever a situation in which you couldn't hide,
    in which they actually came in, and maybe you
    were in some part of the house and you
    couldn't get to the cellar, and you had to hide upstairs?
    Yes.
    There were also-- there was a situation where we had no time
    and went into--
    I think different times--
    into a closet.
    And I think that was not very helpful.
    But I don't know why they didn't search through the house,
    really.
    It's also strange.
    I know my father was in one closet.
    He went there, with clothes in it and so on.
    And my mother put me in another closet.
    I think they certainly opened such closets.
    But I remember we also had such a situation.
    I mean, there was a constant--
    I should say the constant fear.
    But I don't remember the fear, but the constant pressure
    to be--
    the English word, to get caught, constantly.
    Can you describe what you saw through the little slats
    when you were with that family?
    Did you see people's expressions?
    Can you describe that scene?
    When I saw the street?
    When the children and the parents were taken away.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, I don't know.
    I remember that the children were--
    they were not depressed or so.
    And I thought--
    I was astonished.
    Not that they laughed, but they were--
    I don't know-- if something nice is going to happen,
    so that what I can remember, the parents were
    very depressed and very broken.
    But there was a lot going on the streets.
    In this case, I know that these Gestapo
    men were very impatient, noisy, and they did their duty.
    They told me that after the war when I sometimes I
    tried to talk with Germans.
    Many of them told me that they only did their duty.
    They didn't feel bad about what they did.
    And I suffered from this.
    That's why I couldn't talk.
    But I also remember that was why I
    said that I thought they have food so they can be happy,
    that they sometimes enjoyed what they were doing the power,
    I suppose.
    And I still have that feeling about it.
    I think about it, people can do to each other and enjoy it.
    You were on the run for about two years, from '42.
    From-- I don't know when we went into hiding.
    It was not long after.
    I don't know the years because I have no memory for years.
    But I got to know that soon after the Germans occupied
    Holland--
    some people said it was a year later.
    Some said it was earlier--
    till the end of the war.
    You mentioned how some people, when
    the Gestapo came, and they just said, here we are, take us.
    What kept you going, you and your parents?
    Did you ever feel that you just wanted
    to stop running, stop hiding?
    I never thought about it at that time.
    I didn't think about it.
    I don't know what my parents thought.
    I don't know.
    I just continued running after the war in Germany,
    went back to Holland, lived in Israel, lived in Switzerland.
    Then finally, I really had to flee because they started--
    painted my house with Swastikas.
    Things were not good.
    In Germany?
    Yeah.
    So I fled Germany to Spain.
    When did this happen?
    That was in the '80s.
    I'd already started my--
    I was married, and my husband and I,
    we wanted to emigrate together but he
    didn't dare to do it anymore.
    He was an editor and writer, and he said--
    he was older than I am, 11 years.
    And he said, I don't dare to do it, to change the language
    and to go again.
    and he knew that I could not stay there anymore.
    I stayed because of him much longer than I wanted to stay.
    And also because of my mother was very old.
    And so I went back, and back to Germany.
    Also my friends were there, and I wanted to do my work.
    So I went back and back.
    But I knew I wanted to leave.
    And the last years were really very hard because of--
    in the beginning there were more subtle remarks and so on,
    which I suffered from, but became more and more openly.
    And in '89 I really fled to Spain, to a very remote island.
    And it was very peaceful there.
    The nature.
    The only neighbors.
    I had there were Germans who celebrated Hitler's birthday
    every year, and they wore swastikas in their ears.
    So I attract-- or I don't know, attract, obviously,
    such situations.
    Someone told me, as long you don't have resolved all that,
    you will attract them.
    And so I was surrounded by people.
    Yeah.
    And they gave gifts to the men, key rings, swastikas,
    and others painted the town with swastikas.
    So I felt very uncomfortable and started
    to prepare myself to go overseas, to go here.
    This was my first choice.
    If not, I thought I will go to Canada or to [INAUDIBLE]..
    I made it here.
    I started learning English, and so I
    was very happy when I got my legal immigration in '92,
    in May, and came here.
    But with my background, it was really
    difficult to be in Germany, actually,
    from the very beginning.
    So I was running.
    I was running from one place to-- that's actually what I
    wanted to say--
    running and never stopped, and I don't know.
    So I certainly lost--
    I only know that there were people who gave up because they
    didn't want--and I can understand that.
    I really can understand that.
    You don't want to save your life and go through the hell
    to just to save your life.
    I don't know whether I would do that today.
    But at that age, I didn't even know another life
    because that was very short before.
    I didn't know a normal life.
    I didn't like it, and several [INAUDIBLE] it was--
    didn't know, really.
    I didn't think about it, just accepted it day by day.
    You mentioned you had a special relationship with the rat.
    Were there any other animals or children
    that you had relationships with during your hiding?
    There was later a cat.
    There was a cat, a very big cat.
    And I think I always had special relationships with animals
    because I don't know whether I learned that from the cat.
    But when I was in Germany and 12 years old,
    I could catch a bird.
    And my father was so horrified when he saw that.
    I don't know.
    I think the cat taught me that because I climbed also
    trees later.
    It was a very strange thing.
    I can put chickens and birds on the floor 20, 30, 40, 50,
    and they all stay there.
    And I did that there in Germany with the chickens.
    It was the neighbor house.
    I don't know.
    I think this cat was very--
    she felt-- or he, it was a he--
    obviously very domineering being.
    And that's also another story that has nothing to do with.
    But I was not able to handle a normal life after the war.
    But I was able to handle things which no one could handle,
    or I had the things--
    today I think about that.
    I never thought about it earlier.
    But probably-- there was also once a dog.
    I don't know who gave that to me, or to whom.
    But we didn't have anything to eat.
    I think there were two dogs, and they
    died because of starvation.
    But no, no other animals.
    Did you leave your husband?
    Yes.
    Is he still alive?
    We divorced because he was afraid I would leave.
    He knew I wanted to leave, made plans.
    And I only stayed because of him in Germany.
    And that was not so easy because actually, we
    didn't want to separate.
    No, we divorced.
    What compelled you to leave?
    Germany?
    What compelled you to leave Germany and to leave him?
    Oh, I think behind--
    we were getting along very well, but there are always
    some problems.
    And one of the problems was that he
    was afraid I would leave him.
    I always said, I will not leave you.
    But he knew, because of the things
    that happened there in Germany, that I will leave one day.
    And he was afraid to stay alone.
    And actually he didn't want to leave me,
    and I didn't want to leave him, so it
    sounds a little complicated, and it was complicated.
    Was he Jewish?
    No.
    No.
    But there were some Jewish people in his family.
    And he was very--
    Germans always thought he's Jewish
    because they think people who are Jewish look dark.
    And it's such a--
    they thought he's Jewish and I'm not.
    But he also wanted to leave Germany in the beginning
    when we got together.
    And we made plans.
    Later, he didn't dare to leave anymore to start a new life.
    It's not so easy to leave everything and start again
    when you are--
    It was more or less behind our separation.
    But actually, we didn't want to separate.
    I suffered years from it, and he too.
    Sounds very contradictory.
    Sounds very sad.
    Yes, it was sad, yeah.
    But I'm now over it.
    So--
    Are you in contact with him?
    No.
    I wanted to ask you, were there ever instances
    that the Gestapo came in to search and then a family
    kicked you out?
    No.
    I don't think so.
    Do you recall how many hiding places, approximately,
    or how many times you felt like you moved?
    Countless.
    I don't know how many.
    More than 10?
    Yeah.
    Probably more.
    I think more.
    Certainly more places, forth and back and all over.
    Were you ever separated from your parents?
    Very often.
    Can you talk about some of those instances, where you went,
    what kind of situation, kind of family
    you were with when you were without your parents.
    Have we talked about i?
    Some situations where you were alone without your parents.
    Yeah.
    Can you recall any experiences where you were taken alone
    and your parents were somewhere else?
    Yeah.
    I think that was also part of normal life for me.
    I don't recall any special feelings about it.
    I don't.
    It was just--
    Other than the [? Hornig ?] residence,
    the journalist-- you said that that was a good experience.
    Yes.
    Yes.
    Do you recall if you were with them for a few weeks?
    Did it feel like--
    It always felt short.
    Yes, it felt short.
    I thought that they would bring me back to my parents again.
    It was a bad situation.
    They put me back into that situation again.
    It was nice for me to be there, but I
    have no idea how long it was.
    I have no idea, time.
    I have no feeling.
    Even today I have no feeling for time.
    But at that time, I don't know if it was a year or a day,
    more or less.
    Probably I don't have a feeling for time because of that time.
    I don't know.
    I have no feeling, but I was really
    to struggle with time, and so when people ask me,
    I have difficulties, what happened when,
    and always to look up things, which year it was.
    When you said that you escaped--
    what was his name, Ernie?
    Eddie [? Hornig. ?] Yeah, Eddie.
    And he went up on the roof with you?
    Yeah.
    And he got caught but you escaped?
    How did that happen, if you can remember the details?
    That's what I don't know.
    I think he was so focused on me to help me to balance.
    There I was really scared because it was so steep.
    It was very steep and small.
    And he helped me.
    I think he made a mistake.
    Yeah, I think he jumped down, but I don't know what he did.
    How did you get down?
    I don't know that anymore.
    From there on it is, I remember this situation
    on the roof, and so and escaping, and hurry and do.
    And then I don't know how it ended.
    I only know that he was in a camp from that time on.
    I heard that later, that they brought him to a camp
    and that he survived in the camp and wrote a book about it.
    Were the Germans chasing you across the roof?
    Do you remember that?
    They broke into the house.
    They broke into the house, and that
    was the reason we went over the roof to escape.
    And I know they were surrounding with guns or what they had.
    I don't know what they had, the Gestapo, surrounded the house.
    So it was a very impossible situation.
    But I thought about it during the last weeks.
    How did I-- and where did I end up?
    I have no memory for that timeline.
    These are the gaps.
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    Were the Dutch police involved in any of these raids,
    or it was simply the Germans?
    Germans, yeah.
    No Dutch police.
    Or you don't know.
    I don't probably know.
    I only know there was--
    I don't know, some people say it was not such a small group
    around Mussert in Holland, who were Nazis and collaborated
    with the Germans.
    That's only what I heard later.
    So there were Nazis.
    But so my experiences were, and also my parents' experiences
    were that we had very good experiences
    with the Dutch people.
    They suffered themselves too much.
    But there was certainly-- there was a group who collaborated.
    But I don't know about the police.
    I only saw Germans doing these things,
    German voices in German.
    I only know about the Germans.
    What language did you grow up speaking?
    Dutch.
    My parents spoke Dutch with me.
    Was that very different than German?
    Yes, it is a different language.
    Some people think it is similar, but it is different.
    The grammar is much simpler, and it is a different language,
    yes, I had to learn German later.
    Were you aware of your Judaism?
    So that I went to a Jewish school.
    My parents didn't celebrate anything.
    My father grew up in a very Orthodox Jewish house,
    and he was the only son, boy.
    They wanted him to become a rabbi, but he didn't want.
    They didn't do anything, but my mother wanted me to be Jewish,
    and she sent me to a Jewish school in Amsterdam.
    It was a Jewish school.
    So that was actually all.
    So I was aware, sure.
    But it was not a problem in Holland.
    It became a problem in Germany.
    There it was a real problem.
    Do you recall, during your hiding,
    there were celebrating holidays or marking them symbolically?
    Yeah.
    In school we did that.
    And also, yes, we went sometimes.
    Yes, sometimes.
    But it was not a religious life, not at all.
    But we went sometimes to holidays, went to a place.
    And also yes, we were connected after the war with--
    sure, after the war- but with the Jewish community
    in Amsterdam.
    So sure, there were celebrations, yes, certainly.
    What about during the war in hiding?
    Do you remember if your birthday may have been, in some odd way,
    marked?
    No, no, not at all.
    No.
    I didn't even know when my birthday was.
    No, there were other problems.
    There was never, ever--
    I don't remember that.
    After the war, yeah, but not really.
    My family was more than-- that I was aware of the birthday.
    So I developed a feeling that every day is a new day.
    So I didn't take it seriously.
    I think you don't take things seriously
    if you never had an opportunity to celebrate or whatever it is.
    I like names.
    I know that sometimes I had to wear other names,
    different names.
    And I almost forgot my own name. f
    And I recall every little detail if a person tells me about it.
    But I never know the names, and that is so difficult
    because it is not important.
    It could not be important for me.
    I think these are results.
    And people are sometimes so upset I say, I know everything
    about you, not your name.
    Do you recall being told that if somebody asked you something,
    you were supposed to respond in a certain way,
    such as your name kept changing?
    Do you remember any information that you were supposed to tell?
    Oh, yeah.
    That really had a very bad impact, perhaps,
    on my entire life.
    But my mother was so afraid that I could do something.
    They were children.
    I don't know, sometimes you got out with this one.
    And they went to Gestapo.
    They were a family they know very well,
    and they had different children.
    And a little boy about my age went to the Gestapo
    and said, oh, my parents have also such a star.
    And the whole family got caught and the child,
    and they never came back.
    And my mother always said if we are separated,
    and someone asks you what your name is or something else,
    don't say anything.
    And she really must have done it in a very intense way
    because I ran away from everyone, even
    after the liberation.
    For many years I was so afraid people could ask me something.
    I was there.
    I acted like a robot.
    And I didn't know.
    I didn't know what to do.
    And my life was really filled with disasters because of that.
    The teachers didn't understand what was going on.
    I read, and-- but I didn't talk.
    I wasn't able to explain.
    I wasn't aware of myself.
    And my parents didn't go and explain
    because they were so busy with themselves.
    And I was so afraid of people because don't tell them
    who you are.
    I thought I cannot do that.
    Do you think that your parents understood, but simply
    were so involved in their own lives
    that they just didn't take the time to--
    Yes.
    They were very involved with their pain and with their--
    and I know that the school, because I was so strange,
    the only thing which was good, I loved learning things.
    I was very eager to learn things.
    And so it was easy for me to do school.
    I never have difficulty.
    And I still love studying and learning.
    And that was good.
    That was the only thing I liked.
    But I was afraid of people.
    And I know my parents got letters or something
    that they had to go to school.
    For example, also, I had probably 50 minutes
    to walk to the school.
    And I waited till no child were there
    and the bell rang, and then I ran into the school
    so that no one could ask me something.
    And every day I was too late because I could never make it.
    The bell, and never, every day after day.
    And instead of asking--
    or I certainly didn't say anything,
    but my parents didn't understand that I came too late every day.
    And then my mother sent me earlier and earlier,
    half an hour earlier, an hour earlier.
    I was still every day late because then I waited longer.
    And one day my father followed me,
    and then he saw there was a big tree where
    I stood and waited till every child disappeared
    and every teacher.
    And he asked me, so he said, I followed you.
    Why are you behind the tree?
    Now I couldn't give him an explanation.
    And it went on and on and on.
    So I was strange because of not having
    learned how to handle the rules of a normal daily life.
    And sometimes I still have difficulties Yes.
    I try to adjust.
    Also because I changed so many countries to adjust
    to others languages and other mentalities,
    put myself into these situations.
    How long have you been speaking English?
    Started learning in '91 when I visited this country
    and asked for political asylum first because of what
    was going on against me there.
    And I started learning with tapes.
    And I really started when I came here.
    I already started at that time.
    And so actually, it's almost three years now.
    That's incredible.
    Thank you.
    Thank you.
    I do not yet have the feeling that it's enough English.
    I think people have been here for many, many years longer
    and don't speak a fraction as well as you do.
    Thank you.
    It's improving.
    I want to express myself.
    I mean, I do not think right now anymore
    about grammar and words.
    But I still have the feeling it's a foreign language and I
    cannot express myself as well as in other languages yet.
    So I'm still improving my words almost every day.
    I'd like to go back to the war.
    Do you ever recall people sitting
    around listening to radios, to broadcasts,
    whether it's of Hitler's speeches,
    of any of the programs?
    No.
    No.
    I don't know.
    We didn't have a radio, or--
    Even some of the houses that you may have stayed in.
    I don't recall it.
    I just don't know.
    Were you able to get some sort of feeling toward 1944
    when the Allies, after the Normandy invasion?
    Did you feel people around you feeling that maybe there's
    an end to the war?
    No.
    No, not at all because we were totally isolated.
    We were totally isolated, and no.
    I don't know whether my parents had the feeling,
    or the other people were-- lived there.
    I don't think so.
    I don't know.
    I don't know.
    I didn't have any idea.
    I don't know.
    No.
    Probably we were really isolated.
    So we didn't get to--
    1944 you were six years old.
    Did you ever think, or do you remember
    thinking, this had to end, I can't go on living like this?
    Or did you not even think about any of that?
    No, I never thought that Because even I
    had these short experiences with Eddie [? Hornig's ?] family
    where I felt better.
    But I didn't really think about my situation.
    I just lived in it.
    I suffered in it.
    Nit I didn't think there could be a better situation.
    I don't know.
    I didn't think about it.
    Were you ever reunited with that family?
    My parents and I visited them as long
    as we lived in Holland different times.
    And also visited them when we left to Germany.
    And I met the twins.
    And so they were also at that time my age.
    But then I don't know.
    It is a pity that we didn't have contact anymore.
    I was so preoccupied with my life in Germany.
    And I don't know my parents, whether they had contact.
    I don't know.
    But I didn't have contact.
    I tried to get in contact later, a couple of years ago,
    and heard that he--
    we say he passed away.
    And someone tried to get in contact with the children.
    But so far I didn't hear anything.
    So there were some--we he tried to do that.
    During the war, how did you pass your days?
    You said that you had this relationship with rats.
    And did you ever have games you made
    up or with invisible friends or?
    Yes.
    In the beginning, I think about one place.
    I had some contact with--
    there were also hidden children, but another house.
    So it was connected, the houses.
    And I met these children.
    And my mother told me after the war
    that they died in the gas chambers.
    They no came back.
    They didn't come back.
    There was some contact, but not long.
    It was not long.
    I cannot recall how long.
    There was some contact.
    And I even remember a little boy.
    He was younger than I was, and I had a real short relationship
    with him.
    It might be that, I don't know, my age.
    He was three and 1/2 and I was four.
    So it was also a very short time.
    Wow.
    Most of the time I was isolated.
    But there were some contacts with animals and also
    some children.
    But the sad thing was they disappeared
    and never came back.
    Their houses were still there, and the furniture
    and everything.
    And people broke in and stole everything
    because there was no one anymore.
    So people did that.
    No one came back.
    All these empty houses and apartments.
    Did you see them being taken away?
    Not all of them, but I remember one of these neighbors, yeah.
    Yes, this was a boy and two girls where I had some contact
    with them, who went through the [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],,
    or had to go there.
    Do you remember asking your parents, what is going on?
    What is this about?
    Do you remember any kind of conversations
    with either your mother or father?
    During the war?
    During the war, asking them about why are we
    hiding, why do we keep moving?
    I think I know I had to play as if I didn't understand anything
    because I didn't want to scare them.
    That is also an interesting issue.
    I just realized that when I started talking about it
    because my mother always said, oh, you were only a child,
    and you didn't know anything.
    And I knew everything.
    And she showed me a synagogue after the war that's Jewish,
    and so for me that was clear.
    But I played it really naive so that she is not
    too upset or too scared.
    I think during the war-- yes, also
    strange, I just realized that.
    I didn't want to--
    I wanted her to be feeling that it's OK.
    Don't worry about me.
    And yeah.
    Do you see a theme--
    of just out of curiosity, do you see
    a theme of, perhaps, caretaking in your life on your part?
    Have you ever--
    Yeah, after the war, yes.
    With people in your relationships, and friends.
    Caretaking?
    Just in terms of trying to save people's feelings.
    It's just a question.
    Yes.
    For example, my mother, I was often sick
    and we didn't even know what it was, very sick, almost dead.
    And my mother was so tense and so upset.
    And I couldn't stand her being so upset in these situations
    during the war.
    And I know that I always tried to hide when I felt so sick
    and tried to appear OK and not to upset her,
    and also not to get these tensions that
    were so painful for me too.
    I told my mother when I felt sick,
    only when there was no way anymore.
    It was, but also after the liberation, after the war.
    I know that probably because we were so cold in the war
    when I was 11 years old, I had difficulty to walk suddenly,
    because I don't know, probably rheuma or like you said,
    arthritis, or whatever you can have it when you're a child.
    But I never told her I pulled myself together,
    that she couldn't see that I could have something.
    And so with everything, because I was afraid of her reactions,
    of her--
    she kept going.
    She kept continuing being--
    oh, it was so terrible, being sick.
    And I see that was during that situation,
    a dangerous situation, was big danger involved
    to have a sick person, in such a situation.
    That was understandable.
    But after the war again, it didn't stop.
    So stop it, and say, you know?
    I couldn't.
    And she couldn't it's probably still in my system.
    Yes.
    So to appear OK, nothing's going to be--
    Do you remember crying when you were in hiding,
    when you had to run or escape?
    I never, ever.
    I never cried.
    That's also a protection I think.
    Also later, I only cried when my dog died last year.
    That's the only time in your life you've cried?
    No, no.
    That's not true.
    I also cried when I separated from my husband
    and when my mother died I cried.
    But it's rare.
    It's difficult. I'm a master at pulling myself together.
    And also in Germany I suffered a lot from things,
    but I had to function.
    And I know I was in a train, and I studied.
    I came there.
    I just said so now I have to function, and put on a--
    and I felt then that I could do it.
    And underneath there was something different going on.
    I developed something that I mastered doing that.
    I'm happy when I am in a situation where I can be
    very honest and very authentic.
    And I try more and more and more to be that way.
    So not to appear so, OK when I'm not OK,
    I try one more and more.
    There were only few situations where I thought if I am not OK,
    I get fearful myself actually.
    It scares me, being helpless or not functioning well.
    Exaggerated, I see that.
    I have to get away, I try to overcome that.
    Did your parents cry during the war?
    No, no.
    Neither did they.
    But after the war, I remember my mother cried
    because of dead people.
    And my father, no, I don't remember.
    He was just very still, and when we went on the street, he'd--
    I said, why are you doing this?
    He said, no one should see how I really feel.
    So there was also a lot going on.
    But my mother was a very tough person.
    Very tough and strong, and my father probably too.
    They already went through World War I, which was difficult.
    And then these situation, I always say,
    or it makes or it breaks, or you survive or you cannot.
    And if you survive, you are probably strong.
    Or you become stronger through it.
    And I see that with all the difficulties.
    Sometimes you think you cannot survive it.
    But then suddenly you see there is, again, a way to survive it.
    And it makes you stronger.
    There is no doubt about it.
    I think.
    It's also other things are more destroyed.
    That's only it sounds like an advantage, but it's not only.
    But it's part of it.
    I'm sure it is.
    What do you think are some of the sacrifices?
    You said there are not only advantages, that there are--
    what I took to mean as sacrifices.
    What were the sacrifices?
    What do you pay?
    Oh, yeah.
    I pay a lot.
    I mean, it sounded like only advantages
    when I said it makes you stronger,
    because I think that is one part.
    But the sacrifices or you pay with--
    let me think about it.
    In my case, I think when I look back,
    I got haunted by these Holocaust experiences.
    When I came to this country, I had a total insomnia.
    I had suddenly the feeling I'm living during the Holocaust
    here, where I could start a new life.
    I have reactions.
    I have difficulties with trust, very, very, very much.
    I try.
    I can trust people, but it takes a long time.
    And it's a whole process.
    I think I immediately see where is the denial, where
    is going on, and this going on.
    And I suffer from it.
    Because I see already what kinds of results it could have.
    And other people say, well, what do you mean?
    But these are only some of the things.
    I'm very often paralyzed by fear,
    a lot of fear of my life in general, of people.
    Even here, now.
    Right now at this moment?
    No.
    Not at this moment.
    But very much.
    Depression.
    I have terrible, terrible depression.
    Yeah, I'm sure there are things going on, which are--
    my entire life was difficult. And I always
    thought it was because of Germany, where you really
    meet former Gestapo people, and you talk with them,
    and there are things going on, neo-Nazis and so on.
    I always thought it's only this.
    And then when I came here, that it's actually really
    the first time in my life probably I
    allowed myself to think about the Holocaust suddenly.
    And I'm still busy with the Holocaust.
    Actually for perhaps the first time in my life really.
    And then I started to really to think
    and to talk a bit about it.
    I would not survive again if I had the chance,
    and if I had the choice, I would not.
    And I still do hope that if I can conquer the things which
    are going on right now in my life,
    and overcome really disturbances I
    have because of that time, and harmful consequences,
    I have the hope I can write about it,
    talk about it, because such things can happen anywhere
    when people are not alert and not aware what's going on.
    And I see that all over, all over.
    I lived in so many countries in the world.
    And even people who went to difficulties
    are sometimes in denial, what their way was to survive.
    I'm sure other people say you're so negative if you
    start talking about that.
    I think life is very nice and very bad.
    There's a polarity, and I think we
    have to integrate both parts, not only the bad things,
    and not only the good things.
    But I myself, I paid really.
    I think my life is actually destroyed, more or less.
    And I'm very honest.
    I achieved a lot with all my energy,
    and I have two college degrees, and almost the third one,
    and I really did very interesting things.
    But I also had breakdowns and difficulties all over.
    Yeah.
    That's a very hard place I think.
    It's a very hard place.
    What happened to you, can happen anywhere,
    if people aren't paying attention.
    When you look at this United States now,
    what similarities do you see to what you saw
    when you were a little girl?
    No, I don't.
    I mean, this is for me, actually the freest what you say,
    society, I've ever been in, for me.
    I mean people complain here.
    But they don't know what's going on over there.
    I feel really safe here.
    That doesn't mean that--
    I mean it was a very typical thing for Germany,
    because of their long history, authorities,
    and so on, and so on.
    A lot came together.
    But I see, if I talk about denial, it makes me feel so--
    yeah, I get fear.
    And I see that people in other situations
    where they are living in, or prejudice,
    I mean we all have some prejudice feelings.
    And it is I mean everyone has to work through it.
    But it is so dangerous if some of these groups
    get the power, whatever it is, I try to express it very
    generally, get the power, and there are people
    who don't want to see it.
    Because it is unpleasant, it is uncomfortable.
    And other people have some advantages, because of it.
    And everything can happen again, against groups,
    against minorities, or whatever it is.
    And I think that we all--
    did not or most of the people did not
    learn from their experiences.
    And then it goes--
    it happens over and over.
    Like, OK.
    I didn't work through some of these Holocaust issues
    that I get my fear, and I know if someone
    rang the bell in my apartment, I start trembling today.
    And I thought, my God, you are in America.
    I know that.
    And my system reacts.
    And it makes me feel bad that I do that, but I cannot help it.
    And there are very severe things which people did not overcome.
    I think about Germany.
    They didn't work through after the war, and now they started.
    They've really started.
    And there are a lot of young people who do that.
    But there are too many who are in denial.
    And in other countries, there are other things going on.
    And I'm really afraid about this planet.
    It's not easy to handle.
    And I think it is I see life as a learning process anyway.
    And we can only do the things for ourselves,
    and I think we cannot change a whole society, or a people.
    I thought that 30 years ago.
    It's not possible.
    You can only do a little bit.
    But we can change.
    If everyone changes in this minute or do something,
    then immediately a lot is better in the next minute.
    When you hear the doorbell now?
    Yeah.
    What goes through your mind?
    I had that situation, now during the last weeks
    that I don't open the door, and I started trembling.
    And I even thought, well, how can I escape here.
    I observed myself.
    And I'm in this situation.
    I said, how can I escape here when it is the police?
    I said, but you haven't done something.
    But it doesn't matter.
    It's not necessary to do something.
    And then I looked at my balcony, and saw it's very--
    I was even willing to jump off the balcony, if necessary.
    So it went very far, and this happened different times.
    I said, what's going on?
    What was at the door?
    I didn't open it.
    I don't know.
    You didn't open it?
    No.
    Do you not open the door?
    No, we have--
    I'm living in an apartment building,
    and there is a button where you can talk to the people.
    But I thought it could be the police.
    And then I have to just.
    I know it sounds crazy.
    So when you hear that buzzer go off,
    you don't ask through the intercom who is it?
    Yes.
    I ask people to call me before they visit,
    so that I don't get this shock.
    But my heart started racing, and so on.
    I get really fear, and especially the last--
    How high up are you?
    I'm three-- yeah, it's you cannot jump.
    Three stories?
    I'm on the third floor.
    Third floor, you can't jump.
    Yes, yes.
    It's sick, I know.
    It's not sick, no.
    Are you having any kind of support other than your Tikvah
    group?
    I went to a therapist twice a week.
    And we stopped, because she stopped me,
    when I wanted to talk about Holocaust issues,
    because she thought it is too difficult for me.
    And I said no.
    It was difficult. But now I want to talk.
    So I quit her.
    We tried to-- and now I got a new therapist over Tikvah
    through the Jewish Family Service.
    And he also stopped me.
    Because I got once a panic attack,
    and they are afraid of me.
    But you see.
    I talk about it.
    And I said to them, I'm really--
    I make progress.
    Please, don't do the same things they did in Germany.
    I could never talk about these issues.
    Please let me talk about it whenever I want to,
    because I have memories.
    I have experiences as if I were in the Holocaust sometimes.
    And I need to talk.
    No, no, no.
    I'm very upset about it.
    I'm really upset.
    And when you called me yesterday,
    I said it is too short, I need to prepare myself.
    I never-- but I thought now, here
    are people who want to hear, to listen to me.
    So I cannot say no, because I complain about a therapist.
    I have not yet resolved that problem.
    But I said to the person at Tikvah,
    I said, you know, I don't know what it is.
    My life long, they stopped me, reproached me
    for bringing it up in Germany, or they immediately
    started talking that they were the victims.
    And I had always to understand them.
    But no one listened to me, or wanted
    to listen, no one, even my best friends.
    I never talked about the Holocaust.
    But when I wanted to say something,
    they immediately said, how bad they had it.
    So there was not--
    they couldn't hear it.
    It was clear.
    And now I have these difficulties
    with the therapist here.
    But they think, I asked a woman at Tikvah.
    She said they are protective.
    I said, but it's not protective.
    It is harmful.
    I feel imprisoned.
    They imprisoned me.
    They're killing me, I said.
    So at the moment, I'm not very happy with that.
    But I am happy that I can talk here a little bit.
    It gives me a good feeling that I can do that
    without having reactions or so.
    You can come back and talk here.
    I'd like to bring you back to liberation,
    and then we'll go forward again.
    Can you remember the last place you
    were hiding in at the time of your liberation?
    Yes.
    I remember that, because it was a very strange moment.
    We were all very thin, and there was a long time period again,
    probably before that time, without food, or almost
    no food.
    I don't know.
    And I remember that my father wanted to go through the door.
    And I was so shocked that he did that.
    Yeah, obviously I didn't know about liberation or something.
    And God, my mother said, don't worry.
    He can go.
    But he could not walk.
    He could not.
    So he was not used to walking.
    And I couldn't really walk.
    I was weak.
    But soon, I could walk.
    And I was so curious, and it was so wonderful.
    I mean there were months and weeks,
    I don't know how long, people were happy on the streets.
    And they were all over cabarets and theater,
    and it was just a paradise.
    I was just walking around like in a dream.
    Yeah, it was a very, very wonderful feeling.
    I remember that.
    And also I mean, we got this food, this bread, white bread,
    and like a care package.
    And these people were friendly.
    They were really friendly.
    I don't know, Canadians or Americans, or both.
    And it was so--
    this was such a wonderful feeling.
    I had clothes.
    I got clothes.
    They were used clothes.
    But it was so different, everything.
    It was wonderful.
    I really I just went off as much as I
    could, and looked all around.
    People were so happy in Holland, because they all
    suffered from the Germans, from what was going on there.
    Do you remember the exact physical place
    in which you were hiding?
    Yes, yes.
    Can you talk about that?
    Yes.
    Oh, that was actually again the place
    where we went below the floor when
    there was something going on.
    But it wasn't-- it wasn't--
    I mean they didn't have a heating during the war,
    and no lights, or what.
    It was always dark.
    There was not-- you could not cook things or so.
    That was very strange.
    But it was a real apartment.
    And it was on the ground floor.
    And it was so strange feeling for me to open the door,
    that my father opened the door, and went out.
    I will never forget that.
    Because I was shocked.
    And also that you could go out without any inhibitions,
    and people happy on the streets.
    Not everyone was happy.
    But they were happy.
    And when I talk about that, even that was the thing
    I never could mentioned in Germany,
    when I said the liberation.
    And so they talked about that they had lost the war.
    And they had the bombs.
    I said-- I soon learned that I cannot tell about how happy I
    was.
    And I said, for us it was really a very happy time.
    Actually, it should probably not for everyone in Germany
    was at that time, but some reacted very strangely.
    I'm sure that added up all these strange reactions.
    OK.
    I don't know if it's running, the tape.
    I can talk about the [INAUDIBLE]..
    What is that?
    I said, you can cut it.
    I said, I don't know.
    No?
    You don't cut it?
    I certainly started, because I mean
    I got the first time in my life really--
    I was always understanding and try
    to work for understanding between Jews and Germans
    in a very big organization.
    I did a lot of activities for understanding.
    I was always understanding.
    And here it's really the first time
    that I got in touch with my anger.
    I have never.
    I know that a therapist in Germany said,
    you must be angry.
    I said, no, I'm not angry at all.
    I didn't know that I could be angry.
    And now, I have to pull myself together,
    because I said it's not on the tape, and I don't want--
    I mean I have a lot of very negative experiences.
    That's why I finally left the country.
    I couldn't stay there anymore.
    Even I knew it is not easy to change and start again
    with a new language.
    I wanted to pay the price.
    Are you angry at Germany because of what they did,
    or because of the denial?
    Yeah, the denial.
    And they already were in denial.
    My father told me when he warned people, Jewish people,
    and they laughed at him.
    They said he has a paranoia.
    These are only a few of idiots.
    And when I see--
    before he died, he said oh, Edith, you
    could go through this similar situation.
    I never knew what he meant.
    And now I see that.
    People, even here, they say, oh, these are only a few of idiots.
    And I know when I once came back from Spain to Germany
    to take care of some things, because I already
    prepared myself to go here.
    That was a whole process.
    And I was in Cologne where I lived.
    And there was a demonstration with big signs
    and protected by the police.
    And written on the signs was [NON-ENGLISH],, foreigners out,
    Jews into the gas chambers.
    And protected by the police, it was protected.
    And I was shocked, and I wanted to go over the place,
    but we had to wait.
    And they had flags from the foreigners.
    They lived in the country, and Israel,
    and they burned the flags.
    And it was also a place where they
    burned in the '30s the books.
    So for me, that made me sick, such experiences.
    My friend said, oh, there are enough other people too.
    Sure, there are also other people.
    You can never generalize.
    But during the '30s, there were also other people.
    And part of them don't want to be active then, or deny it,
    or have everyone has their own problems.
    So it is really I experienced these things as a big danger.
    And it goes on and on and on.
    It goes on and on.
    And if you don't take it seriously,
    I think things can happen again.
    All kind of situations can happen again.
    And I asked German people, when that happened, I said,
    what do you think about that?
    And they said, oh, we have freedom of speech.
    So-- there are certainly people against these things.
    But in the meantime, they killed.
    My friends wrote me every day, they're
    killing foreigners on the street,
    or tech institution, where Jewish people are also,
    and no one helps.
    People are afraid to get involved.
    And for me, it's very difficult. Or I have to do a lot,
    or I have to escape.
    It's the only thing I can do.
    And helping these people, sure, you
    could get attacked if you say something, or do,
    and I did that.
    I got attacked myself.
    Even with the police there?
    No, no I didn't say a word.
    I mean I didn't do it, because that was--
    they were protected and they were with arms,
    and so no one would dare to do that.
    But I felt sick after that.
    That it is a call, a call, we you say call out, or call up?
    Collaborator?
    No.
    No.
    To say Jews into the gas chambers.
    I mean or foreigners out, who have been there for 40 years,
    their children were born there.
    But they even murdered people who looked Black.
    And now they murdered again a man who was a German,
    but he had Black hair, and they thought he's a foreigner.
    I mean such things happen.
    And it's daily life there, in the meantime.
    I mean that's swastikas here, and swastikas
    there, games for children.
    How many computer games, how many Jews you
    can gas in a gas chamber, such things are going on.
    Those are computer games in Germany?
    Yeah.
    I don't know whether about you know about these things.
    But for me, that is terrifying.
    For other people, they say--
    even my friends.
    And I showed the whole building the swastikas.
    And I showed it to them.
    I said, it makes me sick.
    And they sing Nazi songs here in the evening.
    Don't be so sensitive.
    You are just too sensitive.
    You know?
    Yeah, I mean it's happy people.
    But on the other hand, I also think about the consequences,
    if you don't take it seriously.
    You know?
    And now, I try to do some volunteer work
    for the Holocaust center.
    I get a lot of articles about Germany.
    I've been here now for almost three years.
    So I'm also away from the information.
    And I get all these articles.
    I had to stop it, because it was really more than depressing,
    unfortunately.
    Because I want to know what's going on.
    But it doesn't look very good.
    I think there is a big danger going on.
    I really see big danger.
    And they have now death lists, the Nazis.
    There are also old Nazis.
    They never talk about these things.
    Even they're very old and they are dying,
    but they were very active together,
    and gathered together with neo-Nazis, they train them.
    They had lists where people were against them.
    And now they have death lists.
    So they kill them.
    And such things are going on there.
    And what I read, and these are really good newspapers,
    these articles.
    They train, I don't know whether it goes.
    But whatever, they train, the military
    trains people, the neo-Nazis, with arms,
    with weapons, the military.
    That's your military.
    It makes me feel very bad.
    It makes me so--
    I'm terrified of Germany.
    I'm really terrified.
    Do you feel that you want to do something
    from here to stop this?
    You can't stop it.
    I know but do you--
    It's too late.
    Do you have that motivation?
    Yes.
    I always had the feeling, being in Germany,
    or I do something about it, or I leave.
    And I wanted to leave.
    And I didn't want to be politically involved
    with my background.
    I didn't want to, for many reasons.
    But I did something for understanding.
    I try to work it's called the [NON-ENGLISH],,
    who did a lot of things and I'm trying to work in understanding
    between Jews and Germans.
    And so I've tried to do things this way.
    And I try actually, I try to work myself,
    and not to be prejudiced, and not to have my past experience
    running my life and my fear of the Germans,
    I really tried to work through it.
    But finally I gave up.
    I couldn't make it.
    But I always tried to have understanding
    for their problems, for the Germans,
    and how they got involved in their system
    there, and all that.
    I really tried.
    Because otherwise you cannot live there.
    That was part of my work.
    But finally, I gave up because I thought it is too late.
    There's too much denial, and too many things are going on.
    And it is not possible.
    It was again, I wanted to survive.
    And they accused me for things I've never done.
    They were really, it got personal.
    I got really personally--
    Did you fear for your life?
    Yes, I had to.
    The police came into my house without a court case,
    with accusations, and these were errors.
    I mean, the first when such an error happened,
    also my friend said that can happen to anyone.