Testimony of Dr. Joseph (Zvi) Haas, born in 1925 in Culemborg, Netherlands, about his experiences in Culemborg, Utrecht, and in various hideouts in the vicinity of Driebergen

Today, February 29, 2012, I, Ronit Wilder, interviewed Prof. Yosef Tzvi Hess, born in Culemborg, the Netherlands, in 1925.

(Audio 0110)

Q: The 29th of February, 2012, vav b'Shvat, tav shin ayin beit. This is an interview with Professor Yosef Tzvi Hess. You were born in the Netherlands, Culemborg - if I pronounce it correctly - 1925.

Can you tell me a little bit about the background of your family?

A: I have a father and a mother. My mother was born in Culemborg, but her mother was from Germany; she came from Frankfurt am Main, where there was a modern Orthodox kehilla. And the Jews, the Orthodox Jews in Holland were not capable of finding an Orthodox partner, and my grandfather, who died in 1910, heard about this modern Jewish Orthodox kehilla in Frankfurt am Main; he went there, and he got his wife, Betty Blume-Gantz. Betty Blume had a lot of sisters and brothers with all kinds of funny names, exactly the names of the Nazi leaders; there was an Uncle Adolph, Uncle Julius and Uncle Joseph and Uncle Herman Donderdein. All the Nazis were represented in our family. And my mother and father were married in 1923, but my father came from Tiel, another city - T-I-E-L; and he preferred to live in Tiel because his father was there and his brothers and sisters, and my mother consented after her mother, who became a widow remarried. So after a few years living in Culemborg, my parents moved to Tiel. From age 1 to 5, I lived in Culemborg and I went there to the nursery school; I remember it very well because here we had a volunteer from Holland and she went to the same nursery school but only the teacher was older than my case. So I had no bad experiences in Culemborg; it was nice. I lived there until five years. I had a sister a year older, and I have no bad memories actually.

Q: The name of your sister?

A: No, it is Rachel. Her name is Betty Rachel. Betty was the name of her German Jewish grandmother. The German Jewish grandmother was named Betty Blume-Gantz. So my sister, who lives in this country now, in Ha Ogev - if you know where that is,

Q: Yeah, a moshav,

A: Opposite Megiddo. And I don't have special memories; no bad memories or good. I know that when I went to the hairdresser, I got always a cent from him. So I was very independent, I liked, I loved the hairdresser - once in a month or two months or three months, I don't know, because I got a cent from him. And my father paid him afterwards.

Q: What was your father's name?

A: Meir Moshe.

Q: And your mother's name?

A: My mother's name was Henrietta. In Hebrew her name was Chechi, if you ever have heard that.

Q: So your mother was originally from Germany?

A: No, my mother was born in Culemborg, in Holland.

Q: Yes, but originally the family was from Germany. And the family of your father was from Holland for many generations?

A: Yes, but also the family of my mother, because I have another book about the family of my mother, about Culemborg. There were also many generations, important families with the name of Weisenberg. My mother's name was Henrietta Weisenberg. And the Weisenberg family lived for many years in Holland; and the family of my father, for many generations, in Tiel.

Q: So somewhere, somehow, during the centuries, the family moved to Germany and then they came back to Holland, your mother's family?

A: No, no. My mother's family, her mother was born in Frankfurt, but the family, Gantz family, lived for many generations in Germany.

Q: Ah, so your maternal grandmother was from a family who lived a long time in Holland?

A: No.

Q: The father was from Germany?

A: My mother's father lived for many generations in Holland.

Q: Ah, okay,

A: My mother's mother was from Germany. Is that clear?

Q: So what was the language you spoke at home?

A: Dutch.

Q: Only Dutch?

A: Only Dutch. But my grandmother didn't know one word of Dutch; she used my mother as a,

Q: Translator.

A: As a translator. And when she remarried, she moved to Arnhem; you heard about Arnhem. And she didn't use the phone; she wrote every weekend a letter: "Meine liebe kindel orech yomim tovim," if you know what that is. So we were in front of her, because she wrote a weekly letter to us.

Q: But people usually say that if you speak Dutch, you can understand German and, if you speak German, you can understand Dutch, because there is a great resemblance between the languages; isn't it?

A: Leave the word "great" away. There is a resemblance. And many Dutch believe they speak German, but they don't speak it. It's like a dialect for them.

Q: But if you speak Dutch, you understand German? Maybe you don't speak, but you understand what they are saying?

A: Not always and not all the time. But for instance, I remember, and it was very crucial and important in my life, my Germany grandmother could not see very well. I used one set of glasses, or even more, and I remember she said to me, 'When you will be big, you will be a doctor and you will cure my eyes.' I don't know in which language she said it to me, but the idea was so strong and had such an influence on my life that since the age of 5 I was a doctor. I had no difficulties in choosing my profession, although it was not easy, because my mother was an accountant and wanted very much that I will study economy/accountancy. So at the age of 12 I had to choose to which high school to go; I had to fight. She wanted me to go to a commercial high school, and I wanted the other high school. So she said, 'You'll do an exam to be admitted there,' and that was not enough. Then they sent me to a psychotechnic examination in Utrecht when I was 12, or something like that. And they came with the result: 'He has an excellent mind to study and to be a lawyer.' What a complicated story. In the end I did the two exams and I was admitted, my choice, to the other school. But they didn't make a problem of it. It was her ambition that the business she set up, we had an office at home, and she never worked in the kitchen, she never was a housewife; she was a kind of more masculine type, also with an aniva.

Q: But you said that your mother came from a religious family, and yet she was an accountant?

A: Yeah.

Q: It wasn't so common at that time.

A: I think that after her mother remarried, she went to, she went back to an accountancy school in Frankfurt am Main, because her uncle, Herr Doktor Julius Gantz, was a director of … Handel shul in Frankfurt am Main. So it remained more or less in the family, because her uncle was in that business in Frankfurt am Main. My mother had to take care of the family of her mother because her mother didn't speak a word of Dutch, and her second husband was not so ideal; she had no good contact with him. But that's the way it went. And when,

Q: But she was not an only child, your mother?

A: My mother had, that's, you're touching a very interesting subject. My mother had a brother who was killed by the Germans already in '41, and she had a sister; she was killed by her husband in 1940.

Q: By? She was killed,

A: By her, let me explain. The husband had heard how the Jews were persecuted in Germany, and he said, 'I don't want to have that in my family.' So he killed his wife and three of her sons May 14, 1940, 13 days after the Germans entered Holland.

Q: That means that sort of committed suicide, the family?

A: He committed suicide himself and he killed his wife and children.

Q: They didn't agree to his opinion?

A: I can't tell you. It happened four days after the Germans entered Holland; and not in our city; we heard it afterwards. And it was not a matter of agreement or not agreement. Apparently, that's what happened. These were her only brother and her only sister. After the second marriage of my grandmother, there was another boy and a girl, with whom we didn't have so much contact.

Q: And you met your grandmother a lot as a child? Because you said she lived in another city.

A: In Arnhem. It was 40 kilometers from Tiel where I lived from my fifth until my seventh years, and it was three hours by bike. So I went there by bike.

Q: Three hours by bike?

A: Yes. If you ride a bike, you can do 15 kilometers an hour. 15, not 50.

Q: Yeah, that means that three hours of cycling was common at that time?

A: Yeah, it was quite common. … cycled even in Ramat Hasharon.

Q: At what age did you learn to ride a bicycle?

A: I think it was ... I can't tell you. I got my own bike when I was 6 or 7. But there were bikes all over the place. A bike is not something unusual.

Q: Everyone had a bike, right? Your sister had one,

A: She had one, yes, as well.

Q: One pair of bicycle. You and your parents, everyone had a,

A: My mother had,

Q: Used your own bicycles?

A: My father had a car for his business, and we took the car for outings, but a bicycle was not something unusual. Everyone had a bicycle.

Q: What was your father's occupation?

A: He had a business selling cigars and wine, which he ran with his brother. So they took the car, big car, with wine and with cigars, and went to the persons in the neighborhood; they brought the stuff home.

Q: He had a shop?

A: No, they had a machsan; no shop.

Q: So they bought a big amount of cigarettes and, you said, wines?

A: Cigarettes and also I remember cigars, yes, I do remember.

Q: Cigars and wines.

A: And wine also, yes.

Q: And they went with it across the country?

A: Across the town where we were living there were peasants, and my father went from peasant to peasant; he had his firm clients, they ordered every month, and my mother was at home. So actually my mother earned more money than my father, and the division of labor in our household was completely different because, as I told you, my mother studied in Germany to become an accountant/tax advisor, whereas my father had to leave high school and to help his father, who was a baker. And he was the only Jewish baker, and of course there were not many Jews. But he had a lot of non-Jewish clients, because his bakery and shop was closed on Shabbat but open on Sundays. So all the non-Jewish ladies came to my grandfather to buy cakes and bread, and he had so much work that he asked my father, after three classes of high school, 'Come home and help me because I can't do it anymore.' My father suffered from this all his life. He learned very good Hebrew. He even, well, I'm jumping a little bit; he wrote letters in Hebrew when we were living in Jerusalem, because we reached that point that we, we lived for 12, 14 years in Jerusalem, where I worked in the Talbiya Hospital, if you know what it is.

Q: I know what it was. I think it doesn't exist anymore, if I'm not mistaken.

A: I think you are right. I wasn't there. But I worked there from 1955 till '59. But we'll reach that point later on.

Q: So you had not very regular situation at home when your mother was more educated than your father and she earned more money than your father. And even the fact that she worked after getting married and having children, is not,

A: No, you're completely right.

Q: Is not common at that time.

A: No, it was certainly not common, but that's the way it happened. And we were, my sister and I, we weren't aware there was a problem, actually, because every once in a while my father worked also in the kitchen, because Friday night he made a cake for Shabbat, because he knew that, and my,

Q: He was a conditeur? No.

A: No, no, he assisted his father, who was a baker.

Q: So he was a sous-baker, as we have today sous-chef?

A: Yeah, kind of. But in many respects, we were not aware of the ... The division of labor between my father and mother was completely different from, say, normal families. An unmarried sister of my father did all the household thing; she had a session with my mother; they did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we eat this and this and this and that; "you take care of it." I remember,

Q: She cooked for you, your aunt?

A: Yeah, she cooked. She did everything in the household. The unmarried aunt; unmarried sister,

Q: But she didn't live with you?

A: No, no, no, no. She didn't sleep, she didn't have a room, but she did the household. I remember only one time that my mother was in the kitchen; she taught my sister how to clean ritually a chicken, to open it, to put your hand in it, this, take this out, take the, that's the only time I remember my mother in the kitchen, the only time.

Q: As far as you know, your mother didn't even know how to cook?

A: I'll give you an example. We went with our mother to Jonfurt - ever heard of Jonfurt? That's a little city next to the sea, not far from Amsterdam. And then Mother announced, 'Now I will cook.' What did she cook? She bought chips, tartes frites, kacha ze, tapuchei adama, kacha ze.

Q: Ah, potatoes.

A: No, no. Frites.

Q: Ah, chips,

A: Chips.

Q: What we call here.

A: You call those "chips", yeah. Okay. She says, 'Now I'll cook.' So she bought chips. She bought baked fish - she had only … - and she made a salad. And sometimes we got after we went to town, we had some ice cream. But she announced the summer vacation, 'Children, now I will cook,' and it was, that was the menu.

Q: And, you know, if you had to, I don't know, to replace a button in your shirt, or to do something, I don't know, like, you know, like mothers at that time used to do with their children?

A: We had a lot of other persons. We had a very big house in Tiel. … 14 rooms. It was the second largest house in town. We had a lady who cleaned the floors. We had another lady to clean the marble. We had an assistant young lady who assisted the housekeeper, for cleaning things and other. So it was, a button was not a problem.

Q: It sounds like almost a mansion.

A: Well, we had, we rented in the house, first of all, there was the office of my mother; we had people who were working; then my sister had a room; I had a room. The 24-hour living-in servant had also a room. Then there were two rooms rented to one, to a teacher, I don't know exactly, but there was always people. But household assistance was plenty; no problem at all.

Q: So I understand that your mother was a very successful accountant.

A: Yeah, I think so. It was because of her also that we were helped by one of her clients to find a place in the underground to rescue our family. So she had a lot of connections all over the place, not in Tiel but in the surrounding. In that book, you'll find that of all the Jewish inhabitants of Tiel who were rescued, they were rescued by people outside of Tiel. The non-Jewish population did not much for the Jews. I can give you an example. This man with whom I wrote that book found out that in one of the local newspapers was an ad when there was an announcement of the Germans that we had to wear a star, that one of the local newspapers said that 'Finally we know our enemies.' But if you ask me personally did I ever suffer from persecution or … they call you "Juden", no. It was a big surprise that there was such a latent anti-Semitism, but latent in many, I can give you other examples.

Q: But it was anti-Semitism or more like envy? Because, you know, you describe a successful family, your mother was known, and I suppose she had a good name in town as a good accountant, and many people to work in your household. So I assume that people will be jealous.

A: I understand your question, but I'll tell you something. Anti-Semitism, the persecution of Jews is a thing which happened for thousands of years and for thousands of reasons: either the Jews were too wealthy or too intelligent or too poor or too this or too that. The reasons for persecution of Jews are very many, endless. Why are the persons hating the Jews not only in the time of Queen Esther but also now? For what reason? So I don't have many books about the reasons for anti-Semitism. For me it is a riddle. It exists for thousands and thousands of years, in Egypt, in Persia, in Germany; just for everyone.

And so there was latent anti-Semitism in our town and in Holland. Many Israelis think that the Dutch, they saved the Jews and 'you are marvelous and marvelous.' The Jews in Tiel were not helped by any of the non-Jewish inhabitants. And the reason for anti-Semitism, it was latent. I told you, one of the local newspapers had this ad, not all the local newspapers. But for instance, there is a story from one of my patients, so they tell me; there was a husband, a wife and a mother of the wife, and the patient. Then this Germans started to persecute the Jews, the fact that, 'No, I'm working in the factory, very important for the German army.' Okay. He was not taken, and his wife was not taken. But the mother of the wife was sitting there, and the Dutch policeman said, 'Who are you?' 'Well, I'm the mother of her.' 'Where are you from?' 'I'm from …' And he said, 'How lovely. I'm also from that town.' They started talking about people they know, each other. The policeman embraced this mother-in-law and, at the end of the conversation, 'And you come with me.' And the mother died in Sobibor. So there was a kind of a funny latent anti-Semitism.

Q: But did your parents have non-Jewish friends before the war?

A: Not too many. They were quite limited to the Jewish community, because in the Jewish community the women were sewing for taharot, bigdei taharot. Every Jew dies, then, okay, my mother was active in that thing. She did something for the German Jewish children who escaped from Germany to Holland. She was active in many things, Jewish things and Zionist things. So I don't remember that they had non-Jewish friends. My uncle with whom my father did business, he played bridge, and so he had non-Jewish friends he played with. But I don't remember that we had visits from non-Jewish people at home.

Q: Because, you know, usually when we compare the Polish Jews, we compare it to the Dutch Jews, so usually we say the Polish Jews were much more separated and the Dutch Jews were very much integrated in the Dutch society.

A: I think this is a generalization. I'm talking about my thing. In the town where I was born, there was more contact between Jews and others. But in Tiel, my mother has her business at home, my father with his business; we went to school; we had Shabbat. We had an Orthodox family, with kashrut. And I in all those years needed to - elementary school, not through the high school - I never went to school on Shabbat; I always went with my father and grandfather to the synagogue.

Q: But it wasn't a Jewish school?

A: The school, no, no.

Q: The place that you,

A: In elementary school,

Q: You had a permit not to come to school on Saturday?

A: I don't know that it was a problem. In high school I was the only Jewish kid in the whole school.

Q: In high school, wasn't it more like you went to school on Saturday but didn't write?

A: No, no, I didn't go to school, nekuda,

Q: Even in high school.

A: Because I went to the synagogue.

Q: Every Saturday you went to the synagogue with your father?

A: Every.

Q: Because you liked it or because you didn't have any choice?

A: No, for a very simple reason: for a minyan. There were few Jews, and I was needed … school.

Q: There was a problem of minyan,

A: Yes.

Q: In your city?

A: On the holidays, we invited some children from other places - from Utrecht - and they came, they stayed with us, because it was always sure there was a minyan.

Q: How many Jews were in Tiel at that time?

A: Well, there were about, I think, you'll find it exactly in the book, but I think there were some 80, 90 families. But they were not all religious; they didn't go to shul. There was one boy; he was allowed to come to shul on his bike, on condition that he put the bike somewhere else.

Q: You had only one synagogue in Tiel?

A: Yeah. Why should we have more? And I have interesting pictures about it, because this shul was built in 1837, and it is now occupied by Muslims. And I have a picture of a stone that the shul is now a mosque. Actually it's two mosques: one for the Turkish Muslims, and one for the Moroccan Jews - "Moroccan Jews" - the Moroccan Islamites. So I have, you'll see the pictures later on.

But it was accepted; it was no problem. Motzei Shabbat, the end of Shabbat, I went once with the children … to find out whether there was homework or what kind of homework. And I suffered, I didn't suffer actually. I remember one session on a Tuesday when the teacher of mathematics was teaching, and then he said, 'Hess, you come to the blackboard'; there was a blackboard in order to show examples. I got scared because, some of the hours were even on Shabbat, and I said, 'I don't know all the answers.' So, 'Me to go to', 'Yeah, you can clean the blackboard.' So actually it was very aggressive in the class. I was picked out so-called, for mathematics, when it was actually for cleaning the blackboard. But I didn't suffer. But the doktor said I have only to count until 10 or three times a day per, all the things. So mathematics are not so important.

Q: As a child, do you remember anti-Semitism?

A: No, actually not. It was a big surprise to see this ad that we had to, we had this Magen David - it was a star … Magen David. We didn't know ... No, I wasn't persecuted. We had,

Q: I'm not talking about persecution; it's a little too much. I'm talking about small, like, let's say, gentle anti-Semitism.

A: Actually, no, for me it was a big surprise that the Dutch didn't help the Jews; it was a big surprise because you know that 80% of Dutch Jews are killed and, if they were helped, it was by a few either very Christian persons or very Communist persons. But the,

Q: Or by good people, but,

A: Yeah,

Q: It wasn't the majority, as we used to think.

A: No, but there were latent anti-Semites. They were not active in killing Jews or persecuting Jews. They simply, they didn't like it, like you don't like spinach or a thing like that.

Q: But as a child, you felt completely Dutch? You had a Dutch patriotism and you felt you are Dutch, or you're only Jewish?

A: No, it was mainly, you felt Dutch and Jewish … on Shabbat and holidays. And we didn't eat pork or a thing like that. But,

Q: You looked like everyone else?

A: Yeah.

Q: You didn't wear a special hat or,

A: No. No.

Q: Your father didn't have a beard? Your mother didn't cover her hair?

A: No. I'll tell you, when she was married, she was riding a bike, because we didn't have a car at the time. And her sheitel was in the sack of her bike. So when she went and first visited her parents-in-law, she took the sheitel. But generally, as you saw - we'll see that here - it was not obvious that a person was a Jew, not at all.

Q: So in terms of today, I would say that you were a traditional family?

A: What is traditional? We had the Jewish tradition of kashrut and holidays, but not special dresses. Both my grandmothers had a peruka at a, but my, well, you'll see the pictures. But my mother,

Q: But your mother never wore a wig?

A: No, I know this only as a story; I never saw my mother with a, no, she was a kind, more masculine than feminine. She liked to have an aniva,

Q: A tie.

A: A tie. And she, every once in a while she would smoke a cigarette and,

Q: Even cigar?

A: Cigarette.

Q: Because your father,

A: No, the cigarette. Cigarette.

Q: Sold cigars.

A: Yeah. No, no, no, not usually. She was not a chain-smoker. But it was nothing different in,

Q: And when you cried when someone hit you, or something like that, did you go to your mother or to your father?

A: Don't remember I was hit. I don't remember, no, really don't. I remember one winter that I was trying, when the ice was strong enough, on the water, and I fell into the ice-cold water. Then I remember my mother pulled me out. But it was opposite the house, not far from the house. But,

Q: But to get comfort, you went to your mother?

A: I don't remember, but I can tell you in this respect: I remember more that my father put us to bed than my mother. And he made dolls from the clothes. So when we undressed, this was the, the pants and the shoes and here. So he made dolls. He was much more maternal than my mother. And then Friday he made some cakes for Shabbat, but that was not, that was because of his background as a baker, not that he liked to work in the kitchen.

Q: And you said that your mother's office was at home, so you could go to talk to her, to ask her, every time you wanted?

A: Yeah, but we, actually I think we went more to the housekeeper who lived in this house; her name was Sophie Fiche, and she was, she lived for 24 hours with us.

Q: Non-Jewish?

A: She was not Jewish.

Q: That means that you didn't need a goy shel Shabbat, because you had her,

A: Yes.

Q: And she could cook on Shabbat?

A: But she went home on Shabbat, in a place not far from our home.

Q: On Shabbat or on Sunday?

A: On Shabbat. And we had a lady from the street, a neighbor, who came as a Shabbos goya and to,

Q: To light,

A: To make fire and to,

Q: To light the electricity,

A: Yeah.

Q: Or the fire.

A: Yeah. But that was not the living-in servant; a different lady.

Q: What kind of food did you eat at home? Was it traditional Dutch food? Was it Eastern European Jewish food?

A: Eastern European Jews were not known to us at all. I,

Q: Good for you.

A: Huh?

Q: Good for you.

A: I don't know. I won't ask you any questions. It was Dutch, Dutch food, but maybe with some exceptions. For instance, you know what the spleen is? This is,

Q: Oh, the,

A: The liver, and here's the spleen.

Q: Yeah.

A: So, stuffed spleen was a kind of Jewish dish. I think my father made it, but I don't remember. And apple tart, a cake with apples. But we had not many Jews, we had no Jewish youth. For instance, my sister had a friend, and the three of us were actually our Zionistic organization. We read books by Herrson ... And all three of us, we came to Eretz Yisrael, but we didn't have many others. I had a girl opposite the street; we were collecting stamps or things like that. We didn't have many non-Jewish, neither my parents, nor we.

Q: But when we're talking about food, so you didn't know at home no gefilte fish, no choulent, no chicken soup?

A: Chaz v'halila. For us, East Europeans were a minor kind of people.

Q: Inferior.

A: Inferior. Yiddish, that's not Dutch. Also, but the same is good for the Belgians. The Flemish and Dutch are the Belgians; you can see immediately. If you cross the border from Holland to Belgium, it's dirt and it's neglected, and they're eating all the time chips, etc. Even the Dutch that you know, the Belgians have a space between their teeth; you know why that is? They don't have to open their mouths to put the chips in that way. But that was a kind of a local ... of this. But Yiddish I heard only when I was 17, when a physicist, relatives in Amsterdam, they took me to a movie; … the Fiddle and I heard Yiddish. But it was quite a big problem because I volunteered for a liberation war in 1948 - I intermitted my studies - and then all the new immigrants knew only Yiddish. So I actually learned Yiddish in the Tzva Hagana L'Yisrael.

Q: But at home, your maternal grandmother was born in Germany, so not even the German classic food? Only the Dutch food at home?

A: I don't know what German classic food is.

Q: You know, sausages, sausages and cabbage, and things like that.

A: No. No.

Q: But could you eat outside? Did your parents let you eat outside home as a child?

A: No, we kept kosher very much. I remember,

Q: Strictly kosher?

A: Hmm?

Q: Strictly kosher or, you know, just not pork and not meat and dairy together, but outside the house,

A: No,

Q: It's something else?

A: It was strictly kosher. Even with Pesach, my father made, you know what the name "gemjles" is? Matzo cakes. He took matzo cakes on his journey for business, and it was really strictly kosher. Also Pesach, we had a set, Pesach set for chalav and a Pesach set for basar, and it was strictly kosher. Never …

Q: If you mention Pesach, what holiday did you like most at home?

A: I think Pesach was very special because there were different plates and different pots and pans. And I liked it very much; they were very nice and elegant.

Q: But, you know, you had two times leil ha seder and no bread and,

A: No problem. I liked it very much, very much.

Q: Did you celebrate it, only your nuclear family, or with aunts, grandparents and so on?

A: No, the nuclear family. There were hardly any aunts and uncles.

Q: Not in Tiel or,

A: My father had two sisters who were studying to become a nurse at the Jewish hospital in Amsterdam. And his brother with whom he did business, he was also sympathetic and also not so kasher. And one sister was not married and she stayed with her parents. We had no big seders; it was very homely, very, you know what, huiselijk? Huiselijk. Huiselijk is a very Dutch word to say; very nice and sympathetic. And it was, no, we were quite isolated, quite isolated.

Q: So you're isolated, and the Jewish community is not big?

A: No.

Q: So not many friends? Not many relatives?

A: No. No.

Q: Can you describe for me Shabbat at home, how did it look like, from Friday?

A: I went with my father and my grandfather to the synagogue, and I think maybe my mother was there, but I can't tell you; I wasn't home at that time. And then this aunt who was in charge of the household, she stayed with her parents. So that was all quite homely. And I don't remember that we had many guests, but my parents didn't play bridge or things like that.

Q: Special dinner on Friday night?

A: Yeah, of course. There's chicken soup, and no matzo balls - that's not Dutch. Matzo balls, that's Eastern European. You know,

Q: But noodles?

A: Noodles? What is a noodle? We don't, we had gehaktballetjes, little balls of meat in the soup, but no noodles, no.

Q: You said that you went with your father to the synagogue to complete a minyan. But before you were 13 and you went with your father to the synagogue, did you mostly sit next to him, or playing with the other children outside?

A: First of all, there were hardly any Jewish children. There were no Jewish children.

Q: How come? You said something like 80, 90 families,

A: But they were not,

Q: Even if they were not religious.

A: They were not observant, no, no. One of those non-observant girls was a friend of my sister, and we had this Zionist club, the three of us. And we were learning songs ourselves; but it was all very limited.

Q: What kind of Zionist? What Zionist movement was it?

A: I didn't know that there were different movements. Zionist was Zionist. My mother had a subscription for a Zionist ladies' journal, La Isha, and,

Q: La Isha was already at that time?

A: In Holland it was, yes.

Q: Ah, it's not the one we have here.

A: No, not the same one. And we read a lot. We read a lot of books. We had, my sister and I had our own room with our own books. There was a place for Jewish books, for the machzorim and siddurim; that was needed. But no Gemara, for instance. Gemara was not used, and we didn't know what the Gemara hardly was. Like, also my grandfather, who was really very religious, he was a superman and I admired him very much because not only that he was a good Jew but he was a very nice person and he was nice to animals. For instance, if in his bakery was a mouse or a thing like that, he took his … to catch him and throw it outside; never killed an animal.

Q: You mean your paternal grandfather?

A: Yeah, the baker.

Q: He's the only one, he's the only grandfather you knew?

A: Yeah, because the other grandfather died 15 years before I was born.

Q: And the step-grandfather was,

A: Was not observant so much; a little bit in order to please his wife, but he was not a nice person. And if I took my bike to visit my grandmother in Arnhem, I hardly saw him. But I had my own hobbies. We,

Q: What were your hobbies?

A: Reading. And since I was already a doctor at a young age, I had a laboratory, I, we did all kinds of experiments; I was growing radishes on an artificial plate. And,

Q: So you didn't want, for instance, to become a chemist or something else? Only a doctor?

A: No, it was different. During the war, I stayed at 11 different places; 2 of them were with animals, so I saw how a pork was giving birth to 12 or 14 youngsters. I said, 'Well, maybe veterinary medicine is also nice.' And at another farm, there were goats; I gave them to eat and I took care of them and I think, 'Maybe,' but it passed.

Q: Did you have pets at home?

A: Did we have?

Q: Pets.

A: Well, as a family …, we had always a dog and a cat and a turtle. But as a child I don't, ah, one of the ladies who rented one of the rooms had a dog, an Airedale terrier; I took care of him many times. And I also had a rabbit. But a rabbit was not, more or less mushy; I don't like to take care. And the Airedale elder terrier was a big dog. And the lady of the dog was not married, and she asked me very often to take care of the dog. But as a child, that was, I don't remember we had cats or dogs, no.

Q: And the rabbit was in a cage?

A: The rabbit was in a cage, yeah.

Q: Because otherwise I think about the rabbit with a dog; it doesn't go very well together.

A: No, no, the rabbit was in a cage; he was black and his name was Morche. And then I had also a porcupine, a, nu,, a thing with needles; how do you call it? An animal with all those needles.

Q: Um,

A: It's a porcupine.

Q: Kippod in Hebrew, I think.

A: A kippod.

Q: I forgot the word in English.

A: That was also my favorite animal; he had a name: Jimmy. And we were very good friends. And when he died, he got also matzeva, real matzeva. This is his name. And we had a friend in Tiel who made a matzeva. You can visit it; I know where it is. Trayburgs; it's … No, we were not very social, I must say. Well, in Tiel,

Q: What about sport?

A: Okay, that's a good idea, a good idea. First of all, my sister was a Girl Scout. But the Girl Scouts met on Wednesdays, and the Boy Scouts met on Shabbat. So Boy Scouts, for me, was out. We, my mother and I learned swimming together when I was 5. The, nu, eich omrim the boss of the pool? The swimming master.

Q: The guard?

A: Ha matzil.

Q: The guard?

A: Yeah, … Ha matzil came to pick up my mother and I when I was 5, and my mother, at that time, was,

Q: She was drawing?

A: Mah?

Q: She was drowning? Something happened to her?

A: No, no, no. The matzil came to pick us up from the house, and I was sitting on the rama of the bicycle of the matzil, and my mother next to us. We learned swimming together. And afterwards she became an avid swimmer; she liked very much swimming. But we learned it at the same time. When my sister learned, I have no idea. But I remember the scene very well: morning at 7:00, the matzil came and picked us up, and then we went swimming.

Q: You had a river in Tiel?

A: Huh?

Q: You had a river in Tiel, or,

A: Yes, yes.

Q: Only a swimming pool?

A: You know what the Rhine is? It was an extension of the Rhine. And there was no swimming pool, that we learned in the river.

Q: And rowing?

A: That's also a good question. My mother liked … canoeing and canoe. So in Tiel there was a little harbor and we went quite often with my mother in the canoe. My father was not as sporty, because his parents were afraid of water and all kinds of things. All these sporty things we did with Mother.

Q: And in the winter, ice skating or,

A: Yeah, but,

Q: Ski … in Holland is not so much possible, but ice skating,

A: Well, the children did it, but I don't remember my mother. And my father was not educated that way, because his mother said, 'Only in case that I wouldn't break under the ice, I will give ...' So my father was not very sporty. But Mother very was, even,

Q: Did you know how to ice skate?

A: Yeah, of course we did that, we did that. My mother was very active also in this case. My mother had breast cancer during the war, and it was not treated so it was growing and growing. And after the war, it was operated; she had a very big scar, so about half a meter, because at that time the doctor operated from the lymph nodes until the breast. And she had a very big scar which I, the medical student, treated. And she learned even skiing after her breast operation, because from this family in Germany, she has cousins in Switzerland; one of the cousins was director of a very kosher hotel, St. Moritz Hotel, Edelweiss. And so my parents went very often for summer vacation to that hotel, and my mother learned to ski; my father didn't; don't know what he did, because they,

Q: They didn't take you?

A: No. No, no, no.

Q: Because St. Moritz is a very nice,

A: Yes, near the,

Q: Place to have a ski,

A: You know where it was?

Q: A ski vacation.

A: Well, it's closed now because it's, my mother's cousin was married, and her name was Sara Berman, and her son was a yeshiva bochur; Paldy. Paldy. Well, we had, of course we didn't pay; we didn't pay at all. But it's closed now.

Q: As a child, did you go often to Amsterdam or to Rotterdam or Utrecht, I don't know, the big cities in Holland?

A: As a student, a student at the university,

Q: No, no, before, as a child.

A: No, no, no.

Q: As a child, you never went to Amsterdam?

A: Yes, I told you that at the age of 17, a cousin of my mother was a lawyer in Amsterdam, and he invited us to, me - my sister, I don't know. So I stayed there for a couple of weeks.

Q: But that's already after the war.

A: No, no.

Q: You stayed at the age of 17.

A: No.

Q: You were, ah, you were 17 during the war?

A: I think so, yeah. Of course. I was born '25, so some, you're not good in,

Q: Yeah, '42,

A: In cheshbon. Okay,

Q: '42 you were 17.

A: No, no, we didn't go very often.

Q: Although your father had a car.

A: But it was only used for business.

Q: And trips, vacations, I don't know, to the north, to Friesland, to the south, Maastricht, Belgium?

A: No, no, no, nothing.

Q: Germany?

A: No, not at all. We went to the seaport where we, where my mother was cooking the chips. But one of the garageniks of my father brought us with his car to there. Then he took the car back that my father could go on. And my father was not such a big driver; he did it because he had to do that. But, no, there were no things like that like were in Belgium and Germany.

Q: And not many vacations? Although, as I understand, your economical situation was good at that time.

A: Yeah.

Q: That means that people didn't go so much on vacations at that time.

A: No, it wasn't all so, the vacation generally is, if I remember, that my parents went to Switzerland … of my mother. And the children went with my mother to the seaport. And that was vacation. It was not a big deal the vacation. I don't remember any big vacations, no, not at all.

Q: But as a child in Tiel, you were, I understand, very independent because there was almost no supervision over you.

A: We grew up very independent, yeah.

Q: Your mother was busy,

A: Yeah.

Q: So I suppose the housekeeper was also busy. Your father was not,

A: And we didn't like,

Q: At home all the time.

A: We didn't like the housekeeper.

Q: You didn't like?

A: She was an awful woman.

Q: Strict?

A: No, just unlovable. She used coarse language and she was ichsa.

Q: Did you get, you know, the traditional German education, the strict one that, for instance, you had to sit near the table till you finished everything from your plate, and things like that?

A: Yeah, more, but we never thought it was German.

Q: The Dutch is not so different in that matter.

A: Maybe from outside, but the Dutch thought Dutch is super, and the Germans eh, and the Belgians eh, kacha. And the Dutch had a very big influence also on Judaism. For instance, in shul, in the beit ha knesset, if there was once a visitor, he was shocked, "a Dutch Jew doesn't do that," because the Calvinists are very strict; you don't talk, you don't move, just you pray or you make a cross or things like that. It was very strict. Talking in shul, no.

Q: So it wasn't fun in shul?

A: No, it was a, no, I had a lot of functions; for instance, to do the mapa on the Torah, because I was the only boy in shul. For instance, at a young age I learned to say the haftara, and there were no other people who could read the haftara. So I was quite active in this aspect.

(End of Audio 0110)

(Audio 0109)

Q: So, synagogue, for you, was more duty than, let's say, a good time?

A: Neither this nor the other. Actually it was part of my life. I didn't hate it. It was not far. It was part of my life like eating and drinking.

Q: You were the only teenage boy, at that time, in the synagogue?

A: I don't know. I had a minyan.

Q: So you were spoiled by the others?

A: Like, say that. No, it was natural.

Q: As a child, not even at home, I understand you weren't spoiled.

A: No. Both my sister and I had our own rooms with toys and books. And the only thing I remember, for instance, as negative is reading; I was reading in bed with a flashlight under the blanket and I have to go to sleep. Well, that's maximum.

Q: What kind of toys did you have?

A: Meccano; if you know what Meccano is. I love Meccano.

Q: It's, as I understand, it's pieces of metal with holes in it, and you screw it,

A: And the … you can make,

Q: You screw it one to the other,

A: Shapes and things and houses and all kinds of things. And I got it very often as a birthday present because there were all kinds of small boxes, large boxes.

Q: Oh, it's like Lego today.

A: Yeah, but Lego's different. Lego is this plastic. And this … You have to do something and to choose it, but I like it very much. Besides,

Q: It had many kinds of parts?

A: Yeah. And that was a birthday present. You asked for, 'No, give me just a box of Meccano.' Another, I forgot to tell you about sports. I played football. And our club had the same colors as Beitar Yerushalayim - black and yellow. So, zeho.

Q: How come not orange?

A: Why orange?

Q: You know, Holland.

A: Well, that's the national club. The local club, there are two local clubs, but the good club, the respected club, they had blouses of black and yellow. And I was in the youth section; I was …, so I was … was very active.

Q: They were playing on Sunday, so you could join them without a problem?

A: I don't remember, no, I don't remember. I think it was on Wednesdays when my sister went to the Girls Scouts; I went to the football, to the soccer.

Q: But if you wanted, for instance, to watch a football game on Saturday, could you go?

A: I don't think so. Whatever,

Q: If you had a ticket before,

A: No, no, no, no.

Q: Playing football on Saturday was,

A: Assur. Assur.

Q: No way,

A: No, no, no.

Q: Available?

A: But I played the piano. At age 6, although my father and mother are not musical at all, I asked for a piano; I got a piano. So I played the piano very often. I got lessons. I appeared even in children's orchestras. And that took also quite a bit of time. …

Q: Not on Shabbat, of course, playing the piano?

A: No, no, no, no. Shabbat was Shabbat.

Q: So what,

A: No bikes on Shabbat.

Q: Were you doing on Shabbat besides going to synagogue? Only reading?

A: I can't tell you. I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember.

Q: We were talking about the national symbol of Holland, the color of orange, so I thought about the, for instance, the queen. As a child, you felt that the Dutch queen is your queen? That means you felt a complete part of Holland?

A: Well, there was always a prayer for the queen, Malkat Juliana, Malkat Wilhelmina, so she had a special prayer in the synagogue. But we were very attached to the radio. We had one radio and with two stations. And I remember only a serious discussion with my father that at a certain time he wanted to listen to a football match between Holland and Belgium, and I wanted, from the same station, to listen to music of St. Matthew Passion; it must have been in the week of Pesach. So I don't know how it ended, but that's the only severe clash I had with my father, because we had only one radio; there was no,

Q: But how come two programs on the same channel,

A: No, no, there were two,

Q: At the same time?

A: Two stations but one radio. We had Hilversum 1 and Hilversum 2, and 1 was the football match between Belgium and Holland, which of course was very nationalistic; the Dutch orange are much better, much stronger, and the Belgians are the rat devils. So my father was … And I was already interested in music. So music is a big part of my life. So I started already.

Q: Since childhood, I understand?

A: Yeah, I had piano lessons and I had,

Q: And you had a gramophone at home?

A: I think. I don't know, we were very,

Q: …

A: It didn't play a big role, so we had no records and similar,

Q: No records at all?

A: No, no, no, no, no. I remember only, in all the years of my childhood, I went to one concert, and that was a concert given on Shabbat. So my parents bought a ticket on Friday, and I don't know whether it was in the evening or in the afternoon.

Q: Could you walk?

A: Yeah, it was not far from the synagogue even. And it was a violent concert by Theo Olof. Theo Olof was a wunderkind, same age as I had. And the funny thing is I met him in … 50 years after that. Sort of funny. But that is the only concert,

Q: No concerts at all? How come? No concerts, no opera, no theater, no cinema?

A: I don't remember,

Q: But there were in Tiel.

A: Yeah, there were, Bierskopen was the cinema. … two, three or four. But my parents were not interested, even not interested in bridge; they, I don't know actually how we used our spare time, but I played a lot piano. But they were active in Jewish organizations of the hevra and of the, there was also … club, a kind of moadon; I have pictures of that also. But there was no such interest in spare time; either you were working or eating or sleeping. I don't remember time for relaxation. We had a garden. I had my animals. And, yeah, that's it. It was, I can't tell you much more than that.

Q: Tell me a little bit about the Zionist movement. What age,

A: The Zionist movement was,

Q: Was it that you went to,

A: My sister had her friend and there were no other children.

Q: Ah, only the three of you?

A: Only the three of us.

Q: And you didn't have a guide?

A: No. We read a lot of books.

Q: So you established a Zionist movement by yourself?

A: We were the Bnei Akiva, the three of us. We, all three of us, came to Israel, also.

Q: So you only talked about what you read in the books about Zionism?

A: Actually, yes. Yes. No, I don't know, we had very good Hebrew, we had very good Hebrew lessons. In the high school, in the highest classes were boys who wanted to be theologians, and they had to know biblical Hebrew. So a teacher, I don't know whether he was a rabbi or not, and his name was Barand Katan; he came to high school,

Q: What was his name?

A: Barand Katan. Katan was his family name. And my father heard that, so he invited him to teach my sister and me modern Hebrew. So from the age of 5, I got very good Hebrew lessons. So when I was a paramedic in the army here in '48, I woke up one night - it was in Shechbundisken - there was an army,

Q: Ramat Aviv.

A: Ramat Aviv, yeah. I was excited. I didn't dream of girls or about sex, but I was dreaming in Hebrew; that was excitement. I was three months in the country. I woke up; I talked,

Q: But before that, you knew Hebrew as a religious,

A: Yeah.

Q: Language, to hear, to read the prayers and so on. And later on, you learned Hebrew as,

A: Private teacher.

Q: Speaking,

A: From the private teacher. It was a private teacher. After he finished teaching in high school, he came to our house, and we got Hebrew, modern Hebrew lessons.

Q: So you could read and write in Hebrew?

A: Yeah.

Q: And at school when you had religious lessons,

A: We were in no religious lessons.

Q: There was no priest coming to school to,

A: No, in high school there wasn't, but in elementary school there were and we don't have to attend it; we didn't attend it.

Q: So you went outside when the priest came?

A: I think so. But it was not a religious school; it was a public school. And I don't remember whether it was many hours of religion; I don't remember.

Q: No, maybe one hour a week, or so.

A: I don't remember. It never was a problem.

Q: Were you curious as a child to go to the church,

A: Not at all.

Q: To see how it looks like inside?

A: No, not at all. Not at all.

Q: Was there a difference for you if someone was Lutheran or Calvinist or this or that or,

A: Not at all. We didn't know the difference between Protestant and Catholic. For instance, we had a neighbor, and her sister of 16 died. And I was playing with her sister and she said, 'Will you not come to our house? Because we want to say goodbye to my sister.' I was not allowed to do that as a child. But that's the only religious thing I remember about that time. But, no, there were hardly any, we knew that there were Protestants and Catholics, but we didn't know actually the difference. We had no, and these two other houses. And if we came to the house of non-Jews, it was on motzei Shabbat to pick up what lessons they had on Shabbat. But,

Q: Anything else about your childhood before the war? Something that we didn't speak about?

A: Actually, I don't think so. I don't think, cannot think of something. Maybe, I don't think there was something important. No, we were busy at home and, I don't think so. No. But you can ask.

Q: Did you meet refugees before the war - I mean before the war in Holland - refugees who ran away from Germany during the '30s, who came from other places?

A: Good question. My mother was very active taking care of German Jewish children who were escaping from Germany. We had a boy also at home - Walter; Walter Schwinger. He was about the same age as me, but we never became friends. And he was,

Q: What was his name?

A: Walter Schwinger. Walter Schwinger. He has written a book I'm going to show you later on, on the persecution of Jews in Tiel, the other picture of him that he was one of the escapees from Germany. But,

Q: He came without his family?

A: Without his family. But in our house were living an aunt and uncle of my mother, a brother of my German grandmother; that was Uncle Julius and Tanti Ohana. And they stayed for, after '30s. I think they stayed for a couple of years with us, because we had a big house. Now you know why we have a big house.

Q: They came from Germany?

A: Yes, they came from Germany.

Q: And the uncle and aunt, they came from Germany as refugees and they stayed with you?

A: They stayed with us, yeah.

Q: And this child, this Jewish German child, he came also as a refugee without his family and,

A: Without the family.

Q: And stayed with you for how long?

A: I can't tell you. It's also in the movie. Not for a long time, because we didn't get along very well, I think.

Q: Could you talk to him? Did you have,

A: We,

Q: A common language?

A: Of course. My grandmother was German, so I'm familiar with German since I was a child. So German never was a strange language for me.

Q: So you understood German but you didn't speak?

A: I also spoke, but it was very elementary; I was a child. For instance, we had a bad relationship with this uncle, and I'll tell you why: because he was telling us all the time, we were living a peaceful life in Holland, and he said every day, 'This thing will happen with you.' And we thought it was not grateful - we're giving him a room or two rooms; he's getting to eat and to …; he said, 'It will come the same with you.' We thought it was very ungrateful to get from everything and he's complaining and,

Q: You mean you the children, or your parents also?

A: No, also the parents. We would very often talk about it. And so that also the German language, for us, was not a strange language; it was not only because of my grandmother but also because of this uncle, Uncle Julius. And, yeah, that's, why did you ask it?

Q: About refugees from Germany or from other places.

A: So we had refugees, of course.

Q: From Poland you didn't meet anyone?

A: No. No. We had just this uncle and aunt and the boy Walter. But in Tiel, there were other children. We have, I think, a picture where other refugees' children are taking part in the Jewish club or things like that.

Q: But you don't remember anyone else in the synagogue, your age, that came form Germany?

A: No. It's a good question, because Walter never joined us to go to the synagogue, and we didn't want to force him. He didn't, he was not used, he came from Hanover, I remember that. But he was not Orthodox or religious. He didn't join us for the synagogue.

Q: Do you know what happened with him? When did he go? Later on after leaving your place?

A: Yes, he went to another family; I don't know if it's Jewish or not Jewish. He survived the war. He escaped to England; he lived in Manchester. And afterwards, he made aliya and lived in Bat Yam. I must have been also …, but we have no contact. But there never was any good contact. We saved his life, but he didn't feel well in our house, and we didn't feel good with him. So even before the war, he went to, I think, to another family. But I met him in Herzliya at a meeting of the Irgun Olei Holland - I think it was that - some years ago. We are not, no friendship developed. And his Uncle Julius, he was rescued also, and he made aliya and he worked in this factory for melafifonim, beit haroshet,

Q: Beit HaShita?

A: Beit HaShita. [bait ha-SHI-ta].

Q: In Hebrew it's [bait hashi-TA].

A: Yeah,

Q: In German maybe it's [bait ha-SHI-ta].

A: Yeah, that's good you ask me questions; maybe I forgot things.

Q: Things like the Anschluss, the Kristallnacht, things like that, did you hear about them in Holland? You were at the time 13, 14 almost. Were you interested in such things, or was it so far away that it has no connection,

A: No connection personally with me.

Q: Nothing to deal with you?

A: My mother was very active in an organization to rescue Jewish children from Germany. So that was a big activity of my mother.

Q: Did you, as a teenager, did you read the newspapers? Did you listen to the news on the radio? Did you hear some of Hitler's speeches?

A: I heard him through the radio, I think, but not, I don't remember this thing.

Q: Do you remember your bar mitzvah?

A: Ah, yes. I got football shoes for my, special shoes for soccer. And I got also, got a lot of things. But I remember the,

Q: You know, in other places, a common present for bar mitzvah was bicycle; for you it was,

A: We had a bicycle.

Q: It was not interesting,

A: We had a bicycle.

Q: Bicycles. So maybe, I don't know, a good watch or something?

A: I got a lot of pens for ink, you know, you have to fill them with ink. I got a commentary on the Bible, which I still have here, and English, English-Hebrew, Hebrew-English.

Q: Dictionary?

A: No dictionary. A commentary. Kacha ze. Translation, explanation. And, but the football shoes I remember because I needed them very much. And the whole family was, it was the garden of a house, and my grandmother came from Arnhem, kacha. It was a good party.

Q: But for you it was a very dramatic event, the feeling that you become a man? In your case it was significant because that's how you become one of the minyan, and it's a big change for you as a child?

A: I was so used to the shul; I went every week; it was nothing new.

Q: Yeah, but now as a grownup.

A: Yeah, but I think I felt earlier grownup, because I did a lot of things, to take the cover of the Torah and all kinds, it was not a big psychological event.

Q: And learning the haftara and the drasha wasn't difficult for you?

A: No. I heard it so often, once a week, so it was not something revolutionary or something new; it was quite a natural development.

Q: And there was no big party like we have today?

A: No, no. No 10,000 lira or thing like that. We had a party in our house and the garden - I remember because it was in the month of May. And my grandmother from Arnhem was coming, some people, but not, really not a big deal as in, 'Oh, my bar mitzvah, mashu.' Also not my wedding party; we had 12 guests at my wedding party - not 1,200 but 12.

Q: Do you remember the 1st of September, '39, when the war broke out? Not in Holland but,

A: Not particularly …, but what I remember was the Germans attacked Holland May 10th, 1940.

Q: Till May '40, everything was normal, everything was routine?

A: No, no, not at all. The Shavuot - I don't know which month it was - the whole city was evacuated.

Q: But you're talking after the German invasion. I'm asking till the beginning of the war in Holland, you had nothing irregular in your life?

A: Exactly. And talking about it, because the war started when the Germans bombarded Rotterdam - that was May 10th. And I think May 11 or May 12, the whole city of 12-, 13,000 people had to be evacuated. And,

Q: Usually they evacuated cities next to the sea. And you weren't next to the sea.

A: We were moved in the Western direction because the Dutch government had a big idea that if you put the land on water - you can easily do that in Holland - the Germans will be, not possible to go to the big cities.

Q: They wanted to build artificial obstacles to,

A: Well,

Q: To stop the Germans.

A: And the artificial obstacles were water, normally. So the city of Tiel was evacuated. Just imagine a city of 12-, 13,000 people in cars, with horses, and bicycles, bicycles, bicycles. So we went in the direction of the west, and we went to Gouda and Arnemuiden.

Q: Gouda and?

A: Arnemuiden, a small village. We stayed there for a couple of days. And then on our way home - it was not many days - we heard that my uncle killed himself and his wife and the children. So this is the scene of a whole city … just not a child - two children - old people, young people, children, cars, whatever.

Q: This uncle was in Tiel? No.

A: No, no, no. We heard, when we went back, we heard that on May 14 he did that because of the difficulties, because one son lived 24 hours, he didn't die immediately. They had all kinds of difficulties. Also, notary publics were here … things. But he died, fortunately, after a couple of hours. Those were awful, awful days. But since we,

Q: He was your father's brother?

A: No, my mother's brother. My mother's brother. No, no, my brother's sister. My mother's sister, … Betsy. … Betsy. My mother's sister. They were really, really awful days.

Q: And after a few days, you went back home?

A: Yeah, because people understood that if Germans can fly airplanes and bombard all them, it's no use to move whole populations to the west near the sea; just cases of, the whole idea of the evacuation was completely crazy.

Q: Because it was not in accordance with the new ways of war, like,

A: You can say that.

Q: Like you could see in the Second World War, and they didn't use it before?

A: That's a way of saying it. It's kind of lack of intelligence of the generals.

Q: Or maybe conservative thinking,

A: It was completely unpracticable and useless.

Q: But at that time, there was still nothing against the Jews; it was,

A: Not at all.

Q: … population on the same situation?

A: Not at all. No, not at all.

Q: By the way, you mentioned Gouda. Could you, as religious people, could you eat Gouda cheese?

A: Next question. I don't know. I really don't know.

Q: Or even, you know the famous Dutch cheeses, the yellow cheese, you didn't eat at home?

A: I don't remember anything about eating, really no.

Q: So you came back home after a few days?

A: Yeah.

Q: And not long after that, the Germans entered Holland?

A: No, the Germans entered Holland May 10th; the 10th of May.

Q: And?

A: Well, then slowly and gradually the queen escaped to England, and we had a German government.

Q: You know, not few Dutch people felt insulted by the fact that the queen ran away, the queen, the government. Do you remember in your family talking about the running away of all the palace?

A: No, I understand your question but I can't tell you, because we didn't experience the Germans as so far away; the languages are the same. And they said, 'Okay, now we are the government.' We said, 'Okay,' because we had no experience of this thing, because in the First World War, Holland was neutral and not on the side of the Allied Forces or Germany or France; nothing. So the German, the Dutch population had no experience of war.

Q: When you said before that your Uncle Julius always said, 'Oh, it will be the same for you,' did you know what he means by "the same"? Did he talk about what happened to him in Germany?

A: I can't tell you. But my mother was always in contact with the family. I told you my grandma had a lot of brothers and sisters. But one of the cousins went to Switzerland, but one of the cousins went to Australia, and she wrote us a letter, 'Liebe kindel kumza unze;' that was written in 1938 and it arrived when? In 1945. I got it after the war.

Q: From '38 till '45,

A: That,

Q: It took the letter to arrive?

A: Letter took seven years. And we needed it anymore after the war in '45.

Q: But did you hear stories from your Uncle Julius about what happens to,

A: Yeah, well, the Jews were not,

Q: To the Jews in Germany?

A: Allowed to work and not allowed to do this and not,

Q: And when the Germans invaded Holland, was there the fear that it's going to be the same?

A: I can't tell you. I don't remember that, because we didn't, we never were occupied, we never had … personally.

Q: And for you, school is finished?

A: I think the schools were normal until 1942, and then Jewish children were, no, not '42; I think '41; I think … then. We had to leave school, but there were many Jewish schools, regional schools. So people not only from Tiel but from Arnhem and everything, they came to new organizations, schools only for Jewish pupils. So I went to that for a year and a half or two years I think that I went there by train, with a special German permission that I was allowed to use the train. And it came all very gradually, very gradually. Nobody suffered from hunger or from persecution.

Q: You said that you lived in the second largest house in the city. No one kicked you out?

A: We had to empty the house - big, big house - within 24 hours. That was in 1942.

Q: Not before that?

A: No. No, not before.

Q: Till '42, you stayed at home, you went to school, it was,

A: No, this Jewish school …

Q: Your sister went to school, your mother continued working?

A: This I can't tell you, but the car was taken, and the bicycles were taken, and the radios were taken.

Q: That was gradually that,

A: Oh, very gradually.

Q: The bicycle was taken, and then you can't go to this place, and you can't go to this park, and,

A: Nachon.

Q: You can't go to the cinema, but you didn't go even before.

A: No.

Q: Do you remember if you felt insulted by those restrictions?

A: What?

Q: You were insulted by those restrictions?

A: "Insulted" is not a good word. You were limited in your movement; you couldn't make use of the train.

Q: But, you know, when you see on a bench that it's forbidden for Jews to sit on this bench, it can be insulting.

A: I have a picture of this, with this sign. I can't tell you that so much. It came all very gradually. But then all of a sudden, and I think it was July or June 1942, we had to empty our house within 24 hours.

Q: But even before that, you know, you can't do what you used to do before: You have a curfew,

A: It wasn't curfew.

Q: There wasn't? That you can't go out,

A: You had to be at home until 8 o'clock. You were not allowed to stay, yeah, of course there were, but we thought … We didn't see it so seriously. But then,

Q: Well, for you what was the most problematic thing is that they took your bicycle?

A: No, but I couldn't go to school anymore. I had to go by train to Utrecht, with a special permission that I was allowed to enter a train, to this new Jewish school. And it was maybe a year or year and a half or two, two years. So I was limited in many things. And there was no food, so you had to, you were not allowed to have more money in the bank. It was all very gradually. And all of a sudden to have to empty our house in 24 hours. And then my father said we go underground.

Q: But till you had to evacuate your home, you don't remember anything drastic before?

A: Not particularly, no.

Q: Because we are talking about two years. And for you, that you have to have the radio and the bicycle and, I would think that it's quite dramatic.

A: No, I don't have any dramatic memories, but I remember that we had to empty the house in 24 hours, and then my father made the decision we have to go underground, we cannot stay here anymore. And that was of course a big thing because you left everything.

Q: And "that time", we are talking about July/August '42.

A: Yeah.

Q: There were already there deportations.

A: But not until,

Q: The deportations began a few months before,

A: But,

Q: Not in Tiel, but in, what's the name of the city? Zendam?

A: Veendam.

Q: Veendam and,

A: Yeah.

Q: And other cities.

A: That you're right. But it didn't affect us practically, so, but I was not allowed to go to school; there was another school. And then wherever you can use your bike, you go walking. So,

Q: But, you know, when you see it happening gradually, and now you remember your Uncle Julius who said, 'Oh, remember it will be the same for you,' so it gives you another dimension that,

A: But,

Q: Something bad is about to happen.

A: But nobody was aware that there were concentration camps where Jews by the hundreds and thousands were picked up.

Q: Why? Even Westerbork, it was, okay, it was created as a place for refugees.

A: Yeah, but,

Q: But very soon it was full with refugees from Germany.

A: Yeah, but I can't tell you that I have personal memories about day-to-day things. We know it, but I cannot tell you that I was depressed or afraid. I can't tell you. Maybe I've forgotten.

Q: And did your parents speak about those things next to you and your sister, or did they send you to another room before they talked about such subjects?

A: My mother was very active with the German children; she was a member of the committee which took care of the fate of the German children, where to put them, where to guide them. And I don't remember that she spoke about so much, she was not much at home. But my father, I remember his decision, which is, it was not just active planning, it was not a machalim.. He, after we left our house, we stayed, I think, for a couple of days with my grandfather, the baker, and then we planned the mistor, the hiding.

Q: Hiding.

A: That, well, that went all very, very, very quick, because I remember a boy from my class who helped evacuate the house in those 24 hours; he gave me spontaneously his identity card, which saved my life. I just had to change the picture.

Q: He was a neighbor?

A: He lived on the other side of the street. He was actually,

Q: Which you knew before?

A: Hmm? Yeah, yeah. He was a classmate. He sat in my class. It was a child, Henry Von Bemmel. My name was Henry at that time. And he,

Q: He was Henry?

A: Henry Von Bemmel.

Q: Von?

A: Von Bemmel, B-E-M-M-E-L. He was,

Q: That became your name,

A: Yeah.

Q: From that time on?

A: And the case was this: He was born in Indonesia, from Dutch parents. And the schools in Indonesia were not good, so many Dutch parents sent their children to Holland for,

Q: They were still in Indonesia,

A: They were?

Q: His parents?

A: The parents in Indonesia, yes. So on the opposite side of the street was a house, kind of pension, where children of Dutch parents in Indonesia were living. And he was in my class. And spontaneously he gave me his identity card. And then we had to, of course to change the,

Q: But, okay, he was your classmate, but were your friends before?

A: We were friends, yeah. And he suffered a lot; because after the war, I tried to get a hold of him to thank him that he rescued my life actually, and I couldn't find him. So there is an organization in Holland who was looking for persons without addresses. He married twice, he lost his wife, his wife abandoned him, he went to Spain, he went to Australia, he came back, I found out through this organization. And in the end, I found him in the …, I found his address, because a cousin of his, Herzl Radia, we are looking for him … He was a sick man, he lived with oxygen in his bathroom, he lived with oxygen in his living room. I visited him with my wife twice, and afterwards we corresponded; we have his correspondence here still. And then a neighbor wrote me a letter Mr. Von Bemmel passed away. And that was a very important contact.

Q: But when he decided to give you spontaneously his identity card, that means that you and him already felt the dangerous situation,

A: That was,

Q: At that time?

A: That was very obvious. After we left the house, we didn't leave the house, we had to empty it. You just remember a very big house.

Q: Where did you put all the stuff?

A: That's a very good question. I really don't know, really don't know.

Q: You remember what was important for you to pick?

A: I can't tell you. I have a lot of pictures; you can see them. But I know very many things are stolen. And Henry Von Bemmel went to the police, 'I lost my identity card.' He got another identity card. But he had a very unstable kind of life. I don't think he had any children. And he was a restless person. He started law, also, for a while.

Q: He was, at that time he was kind of a refugee, because his family was abroad?

A: Kind of refugee. But there were many Dutch people working in the colonies in Indonesia, these children homes; it was not unusual, not unusual.

Q: Yes, but for the child it's quite difficult,

A: Yeah, but there were,

Q: Maybe that was the connection with you that he was kind of a refugee alone in Holland; you were Jewish, with all the restrictions.

A: I can't tell you. The classes were very small. You know, the whole high school had eight classes, had some 60, 70 students. I was spoiled; I got almost private lessons all my life.

Q: Why so few? Why such a small school?

A: I can't tell you. It was subsidized by the community in Tiel. But there was also another high school, much bigger.

Q: We are talking about the non-Jewish high school.

A: Yeah, we are, of course. But why it was so small, it was subsidized by the municipality, and we had to have more than 60 pupils in those schools; otherwise we wouldn't get any subsidy.

Q: At that time you were already with the yellow star?

A: Yes, because the star started in April '42. April '42. And we went underground in October '42.

Q: You remember when was the first time that you heard about people going underground, hiding and so on?

A: I can't tell you when it started, but I know … of the star in May '42, because a lady here in this house, living in another town, visited the same high school in Utrecht, and appeared a girl walking from the station to the school with a star. And people, they took their hats off and they respected it. It was a very special day. But, I don't know what the question,

Q: About hearing about the underground, noticing that there is such thing as the Dutch underground and that the Jewish people go,

A: No, it was,

Q: Go to hide.

A: It was not so clear. It was all very secret. It was,

Q: Yeah, so that's why I ask when was, if you remember, the first time that you heard about this underground.

A: I think my mother heard it from one of her clients, not from Tiel but from the environment, and through him we got an address to be in October '42.

Q: So the initiative to go hiding was by your mother's client?

A: No,

Q: He suggested it?

A: My father took the initiative. The client, my mother's client helped us find our first address. We went there with 14, we went there with my mother, my father, my sister, two grandparents, and a brother of my father. We were only 7 people in there.

Q: For instance, your Uncle Julius and his wife were with you?

A: No. And a very good question and I have no answer for that. I don't know whether he moved first or after us. I can't tell you. I don't remember, or I never have known it. We'll go to hafsaka.

Q: You heard, from your friends, did you hear about underground and people go in hiding and,

A: That was all very secret.

Q: Because at that time, we are not talking only about the Jews; we are talking also about Dutch young people who didn't want to go to forced labor in Germany, and things like that.

A: I can't tell you. I don't know. I don't know.

Q: You were not involved in it? Your parents came one day and they said, 'Okay, we are going in hiding'?

A: No, after we had to leave the house, we felt this is a catastrophe. My grandfather had not such a big house; we couldn't live all together in that house.

Q: You went to your grandfather's,

A: Yeah.

Q: Schools?

A: The baker. We went, maybe a few days or few weeks; I don't know. … very short period after he left the house, we went underground; that was October; and maybe a few weeks, something like that.

Q: A few weeks at your grandfather's,

A: Yeah. I don't,

Q: Place? And then,

A: I don't remember how long it was … But he had a house near the bakery. I don't remember at all.

Q: At that time, they only evacuated you from your house, but they didn't evacuate the Jews from the town to Amsterdam?

A: Not that I know of.

Q: And there was no deportation from Tiel at that time?

A: I can't tell you. I don't, really don't know.

Q: So you were a few weeks at your grandfather's place.

A: I think a few days, not a few weeks. He had a small house. We were, I don't know how many people we were, but it was a short period.

Q: And then your father said, 'Okay, we have to go hiding.'

A: Yeah.

Q: And then your mother contacted the person she knew who had connections to the underground?

A: I can't tell you. His name was Bakri Jansen, in Dieren. Dieren is near Utrecht. And he was a baker.

Q: What was his name?

A: Jansen. Yeah, and that's the name, Jansen.

Q: Yansen?

A: Jansen. J-A-N-S-E-N, Jansen. He was a baker and a client of my mother. I don't remember he called or whether, anyhow, he arranged a place in Dieren, a place where he lived, and we stayed 14 days in a house with all the people together.

Q: As a family?

A: Hmm?

Q: As a family you stayed?

A: Yeah.

Q: Not everyone in,

A: No, no, no.

Q: In a separate place?

A: Fourteen days we were together. And the name of the,

Q: "Together", that means your grandfather, your grandmother, your parents, you and your sister,

A: And the younger brother of my father. My father had a brother born in 1918 - so you can, how old was he in '42? If he's, around 22 years old, something like that - an unmarried young brother; he joined us.

Q: And you said you had an unmarried aunt. She wasn't with you?

A: No, I don't know where she was. She was not with us. I think she had a job in Amsterdam or, I'm, she was not with us.

Q: So you were 7 people,

A: Together. During 14 days we stayed at one place.

Q: Where do you put 7 people in a normal house?

A: I'll tell you, it was not a normal, it was a car from the electricity company, a kind of, not a station wagon but a, I don't know how you call it. A big car, not, a commercial car. It was not an ordinary car. But, and it was a car from the PGE, the Provinciale Gelderse Electriciteits Maatschappij. Some kind, also acquaintance of my mother, I think, from the Hevrat Hashmal. And they picked us up. It was an hour driving or something like that. … will think of the book, as you will see, that no Jew was rescued by an inhabitant of Tiel. All the people were from outside of Tiel. This is quite remarkable, because here in this house, people, they are rescued by people from the streets in …, I don't know what.

Q: Do you have an explanation for that?

A: Well, apparently that is latent anti-Semitism; it was much bigger than we thought.

Q: But it was stronger than in other cities or places in Europe?

A: Yeah, in many other cities, Jews were rescued by people from the same city.

Q: Yeah, so what's the difference between, let's say, Tiel and Haarlem, for instance?

A: Haarlem was much bigger. Tiel was a small city.

Q: Okay, so let's,

A: But, no,

Q: Let's think about a small city like Tiel. Even if you're talking about Culemborg.

A: I don't know the name of Culemborg. I have a book about that, but I don't know the name of it by heart. Anyhow, it was all very secret, all these things. And I can't tell you about … in Tiel.

Q: But there was no underground in Tiel itself?

A: There was an underground, which I later heard after the war, but nobody was saying, 'I'm a member of the underground.' It was all very dangerous and very secret.

Q: So you went to Dieren.

A: Yeah.

Q: And you stayed there with this baker Jansen?

A: No, no, no, no. He arranged another address; the name of the people was Spitzmacher, and we stayed there for two weeks. Then we,

Q: But how you, how can you stay as a family? Seven people is a lot to hide in one place. Usually the houses in Holland are not very big.

A: I can't tell you. Maybe it was a pension. I can tell you just the facts, but I can't tell you exactly what happened. The name was, an unmarried lady; they were Spitzmacher. And I think she had a pension or a thing like that. I also don't know how we slept, with whom we slept, I don't remember, because immediately afterwards we dispersed to different places.

Q: By the way, you know, at that time it was very important to talk about the look.

A: The?

Q: The look. Did you have a Jewish look? You had what you called at the time a good look? You? Your family?

A: I can't tell you anything about this.

Q: You don't know if you,

A: No, we didn't have,

Q: Looked Jewish or not?

A: We have no noses like that. Do I look Jewish? No, I can't tell you more. But I know, for instance, that there were ladies who painted their hairs; that I know.

Q: Because they had black hair.

A: Yeah.

Q: But your mother, for instance, she didn't look Jewish?

A: I'll show you the pictures. I can't tell you. She was not very feminine. She had a,

Q: The tie.

A: The tie. She, well, she wasn't very Jewish. She wasn't very feminine or very Jewish.

Q: Do you remember anything from those first two weeks in hiding?

A: No. It was all temporary. We knew that Bacher Von Dor, Bacher Von Jansen was looking for other places. So in the course of these two weeks - whether it was 13 days or 12 days I don't know - my parents went to one other's, my sister went to another's, and I went to another's. And we didn't know what, because,

Q: It was obvious that you can't stay together and everyone has to go to another place?

A: Because it was a small place. Tiel maybe was not, it was a small place.

Q: But not even Dieren. Anyway, it was obvious that you can't stay together?

A: Emet.

Q: So your parents were together?

A: Yeah.

Q: And your grandparents?

A: They stayed together but also in a different place. I'll tell,

Q: But together, both of them?

A: I'll tell you a story about it. Every once in a while, we had, I had volunteers who come to work in Beit Juliana. Once there was a volunteer, Dinige, and she was taking care of my wife, who was an Alzheimer patient living downstairs. And I appreciated what she did for my wife. I invited her to come here, not to make love but just to have coffee. And we started talking and talking and talking, and she started talking about the war. Yeah, my parents had also a Jewish couple at home. Do you know the name of that couple? No, from that telephone I called her mother and the people with my grandfather and my grandmother over there. So the world is so small. And it was not too far from Tiel, so maybe some 40 kilometers. And how they came there I can't tell you. How? Maybe through the underground to the movement. But sometimes there are funny coincidences. I didn't see them during all those years. Like, I didn't see my father all those years, and my mother I met only once; but I'll tell you; it's a different story. (End of Audio 0109)

Q: Before we continue the story of your hiding first in Dol and later on in other places, I think there's something that you didn't mention before about the try, the attempt of your family to run away to the Swiss border?

A: No, I didn't mention it yet, okay.

Q: So can you tell me about it?

A: Well, … many people went underground. If they had the knowledge of the underground or something like that. So there was a lot of people who made use of this. For instance, there was a man who talked to my father and wanted to bring us this German Red Cross ambulance to the border of Switzerland, for the sum of 1,000 Guilders for person. And in some way my father discovered that this was deceit. And so,

Q: Before you paid him the money?

A: Before, yeah. I, excuse me. I didn't, my father, I'm not sure whether he paid or did not pay.

Q: If I remember correctly, Holland does not have a border with Switzerland.

A: No.

Q: You had to go through Germany,

A: Yeah.

Q: Or Belgium.

A: Belgium.

Q: So it was a risky, a risky journey anyway, even if it was,

A: נכון

Q: Real.

A: Yeah.

Q: So after you couldn't run away to the Swiss border, what was, let's call it, Plan B?

A: One of the client of my mother was a baker by the name of Yonson, a Dutch name, who helped us escape from Tiel to Duren. It was a big van from the electricity company. And October 1942, my father and mother, my sister, my grandmother and my grandfather, and an unmarried brother of my father went from Tiel where we lived, to Duren in the, north of Tiel, some say 60 kilometer. And then we spent 14 days with the Spichtzmacher family in Duren. And from there we were dispersed, my father and mother to a certain address, my sister to a certain, my grandfather and grandmother to a certain address, and this younger brother also. But we lost contact.

Q: We're talking about

A: October 1942.

Q: Yeah. You were 4 people and your grandparents, it's 6 people, and your uncle,

A: 7 people.

Q: So after a few weeks together,

A: Two weeks together, I think,

Q: Everyone goes to another place.

A: Was referred to, we didn't go. It was all underground, and it was all secret.

Q: Your parents,

A: Like I said, we lost contact.

Q: Your parents were also separated?

A: I really don't know. As far as I know, for a certain period they were together. Whether they were all the period of say almost 3 years together, I can't tell you, because we lost contact

Q: So what's happening to you?

A: During this period, that's about 3 years from October 1942 until May '45, I was only 11, at 11 families.

Q: If you say May '45, I immediately assume that you were in the central park or the northern park of the Netherlands, because the south was liberated before.

A: You're right. The south was liberated before. With these Canadian tanks entering the place where I was at that time, on May 5th, 1945. But I do remember exactly, because it's my birthday. It was my, the best birthday present I ever got in my life.

Q: Okay. But before we arrive to May '45, I want to talk about those years of hiding.

A: Yeah.

Q: So for the first time you are alone, and you are going to hide where? After Duren, where was the first place, do you know?

A: Not exactly the order, because there were 11 different places. The majority were in the Driebergen, a place not far from Duren, or in Zeist. And but in.

(Phone call)

A: I moved because several reasons. For instance, when the people where I lived got a warning that there would be a search for hidden Jews, I escaped. For instance, I escaped from Dribergen to Zeist, to the parents of the wife of the person I lived with. I remember even the address, Klierlan 14, Zeist. But I was not lucky, because the Germans heard of this thing, and they did a very thorough search in the house. I was hidden at the third floor behind a boiler. And the people I didn't see them whether they were Germans or Dutch police, they shine with flashlights, so I saw the flashlight on one side, and on the other side. I was in between, so I was not seen. So I was rescued in a miraculous way. And other places, for instance, in Driebergen, I was hidden with a family where there was a hiding place below the roof, so I could escape. But very remarkable things I think worth mentioning it. There were families who, which endangered their lives, husband wife, pregnant wife, and small children, in order to rescue an unknown Jewish boy. They never had met Jews in their lives. And they were willing to sacrifice their lives and to sacrifice the life of a pregnant woman, because of their faith. That made an enormous impression on me. The majority of those 11 places were Orthodox Protestant believers. But, B-U-T, again but, one of those places, also of Orthodox believers said I hate Jews, but it is written in the bible that you are god's people, and therefore I have to rescue you. A pure example of Christian anti-Semitism, but it saved my life. It was very difficult for me to accept it because I'm in the hands of a person who hates me.

Q: But you know the pure Christian anti-Semitism has two problems with the Jews. One is that, of course, they killed Jesus and so on, and the other thing is that they haven't seen the light yet. That means they don't understand that Jesus is god and everything that's connected to it. So you have a future in the minute you see the light, you can be redeemed. So that's for them, that's the classic anti-Semitism. The church didn't talk about killing the Jews. They talked about humiliating them until they see the light. So I suppose they thought that there is a chance that you're going to see the light eventually.

A: I was then 17 and not interested so much in the past and the history and the literature. Now, I can tell you a lot about it. But at that time I was scared that I'm in the hands of a person who hates me.

Q: They didn't try to convert you?

A: Well, that's a big question. Because we're talking about two and a half years, almost 3 years. I just wanted to give you some more information about this Christian point of view. It actually started with Luther, who was a reformer and he was living in a monastery. And then he discovered that Jesus was a Jew. And he wrote a book the Judeo-Christian … and he expected at that time, when he thought that the Jews would also read that book, that they would convert to Christianity. But he was disappointed, and it didn't happen. Then he wrote another book, the same Luther, for the Juden und … then he described how Jews were thieves and murders and were all kind of unethical people. And that was one of the very strong beginnings of say German anti-Semitism. It became worse when Hitler added that it was not so much the person, but part of their blood and their bodies. So it was inherited. They were not, they were not responsible. You should kill all the Jews in order to finish that problem.

Q: But those, as you called them, religious anti-Semitic, did they talk to you about religion, about Jesus?

A: No, no. I'm, I was hidden 11 different persons.

Q: But we're talking about,

A: This was,

Q: one family who was anti-Semitic.

A: You cannot say that. It was a family of 3 boys and 2 girls, and they were small children. They were not anti-Semitic. But the reception by the father of the family was of that nature, that he said, as a first sentence, I hate Jews, but. But that was only one of 11. There were many others who didn't say anything about faith. They come here, we rescue you.

Q: Most of the families that hid you were religious?

A: Most of them were, yeah. Well that was in … in Holland. Actually people who were against the Germans, either very religious people or communists.

Q: Or you know, just a human being?

A: Rarely. Because the, what characterizes a Dutch is a kind of subconscious weak anti-Semitism. I can give you a very nice example of that. One case, not my … my patients was during 1942 or something like that, Dutch policemen entered the house of a Jewish family and he asked, can I see your papers, please. The father had a paper that he was working for a chemical industry, working for the German army. So he said okay, we won't take you. The wife was taken, not taken, because she was the wife of a person with papers. But the mother of the wife was there in the same house. He said, who are you? Well, I'm the mother of Mrs. X. Where do you live? I live in that and that city. Oh, the Dutch policeman said, I have a lot of friends there. Do you know this one? Do you know that one? Do you know that one? In the end of the conversation the policeman embraced the lady and said, and now you go with me, because he was a policeman, he had the order to take Jews.

Q: So it was anti-Semitism, or the Dutch character, like the German character, that you have an order, you have to fulfill it even if you don't like it?

A: In Germany, you say befail is befail. פקודה זה פקודה. Order is order. You have to carry it out.

Q: And Dutch people are much of the same, no?

A: I wouldn't say so. But that was in general the attitude of the Dutch people, and actually right now, this is same. And also the Dutch government escaped from harm. The queen escaped to England and Canada. What was remaining were people who got a job from the Dutch government, which was transmitted to Germans. So every person who was carrying a card of the Dutch government had to carry out all the commands of the German government.

Q: I want now to go back to you personally. You were 17 and a half when you were left alone. And you went to the first place of hiding. Do you remember the first place that you were alone?

A: I think I remember. It was a farmer. And I was helping him with his farm, milking cows. I learned that already as a kid. And this ended quite abruptly, because the wife of the farmer was doing me a favor and doing my laundry, also the woolen things. They were cooked in a big pot. So have all the clothes, they shrunk. They were very small. And all the other, there was some other … we had no clothes anymore.

Q: She was angry and then you had to go away?

A: It's not, the things are not simple in life. There are many components. It was a very nice place, and I became acquainted with the veterinary surgeon. He brought me books and all kinds of bad things and good things. In the end it ended, and I don't know exactly why. But after the war, when I tried to visit them, they died both, and I didn't remember. But I had also some places interesting days, especially nights. For instance we attended the birth of a calf of a pig. And I learned a lot about anatomy and physiology. I got some letters … I had also good things. I don't know why it ended. I cannot tell you exactly, because there were many reasons.

Q: But you think that you were there for a few months?

A: I think a few weeks, because not a few, I was with one family, I was a longer period, and I had also contact with that family after the war for many years. I even have a picture of them. Sometimes I had to escape , for instance, to the parents of the wife of some person. I can't tell you all the different reasons. But the majority of people were very religious people and they were hiding Jews because it was god's people. This man with this Christian anti-Semitism, was an exception. And long after the war I had contact with one of the children who was … already 40 or 50 years. He had an heart attack and got in psychotherapy. And then he discovered the Christian anti-Semitism of his father, and he started to correspond with me. Unfortunately, only one time, because he died. But he mentioned in his first letter that he was very worried about this Christian anti-Semitism of his father. But there's no happy end to that story.

Q: For you, the whole period, the whole 11 places, you remember them as one, almost one place? You can't separate between them?

A: No, it was separate, because I was in puberty, and I was changing. And I didn't have all those contacts, say, of boys and girls and party, and this kind of thing. I had a very abnormal kind of life. I worked as a babysitter and I worked in the stable with cows and pigs. And it was, and goats in other place there were only goats. It was very varied. It wasn't the same. But the majority of people were very honest and nice and believing people. And there were exceptions.

Q: In all those places, you were only inside the house or the farm, you never went out?

A: Hardly ever. With the goats and the cows, I went a little bit outside, but not too much, because it was, nobody was allowed to see me.

Q: And if someone came to the house, you had to run hiding?

A: Yeah.

Q: Did it happen that you didn't hear the bell or,

A: No, there were no, what you say, punctures. But it was a very abnormal kind of life because in puberty, you go out with boys and girls and party and dancing, etc. I worked as a, in the stable. There was cows, there was pigs, there was goats and with little children. I was a babysitter for two children at, all kind of things people in that age are not doing.

Q: Wasn't it a bit dangerous to be with little children, because they don't have the ability to speak about this and not speak about that, and they could mention that there is a young boy,

A: They were too small for that.

Q: In the family? Oh they were babies?

A: Babies, yeah. And I met them some 40, 50 years later when they immigrated to Israel, and they had long gray beards. And I know them only as babies. I even remember their names: Christian and Peter.

Q: And when you stayed there, if it wasn't a farm that you worked in, you stayed in the house, doing what, if there were no little children? What were you doing the whole day?

A: Reading a lot. I'm an avid reader.

Q: Religious books mostly?

A: All kind of philosophy, but also religious books.

Q: What they had at home.

A: Christian religious books. Not Jewish religious books.

Q: Yeah, it's what they had at home.

A: I was very impressed by it, because not only did they … several books, but it was the habit in many of those families to read the Bible after each meal. Not just one meal, after each meal, whether it was breakfast or lunch or dinner, there was always read a piece of the Bible. So I became very well acquainted, not only with the New Testament, but also with תנ"ך because you ask me when I was attending the meal, would you please read this. I say, well why not. I think that's applicable. So I was exposed to the Christian religion for me something new, completely new, because I, and the … where I lived, I had hardly any contact with Christianity. I was the only Jewish boy at the high school. But we had just contact during the lessons and school, but no intimate contacts. I had one friend until this day when I was 16, she had one Jewish grandmother, was not wearing a star. She was a classmate of mine. Until this very day, she's living in New York. She's a widow. But we are in continuous contact since 1942. Mind you, without sex.

Q: You met her in one of the places you were hiding?

A: No, no, even at school, before we were hiding. Because she had just one Jewish grandmother, and she didn't hide. So she moved to another city, but remained in contact even to a certain extent that to one of the hiding places, she visited me. I was not allowed to go out, but she was allowed to move.

Q: Did you have, in case of emergency, did you have a cover story, who are you, maybe you came from Rotterdam or the common story that,

A: I had a different identity card. My name was Henry Von Bemo. I was born in,

Q: How? Henry?

A: Henry Von Bemo. During all those years, those 3 years, I had different identity. I was not myself. I was a Dutch boy born in Indonesia. And my name was Henry Von Bemo. I was known as Henry. Henry come here and Henry come there.

Q: You had to know something about Indonesia?

A: No. I was born in Somavin. I had to know where I was born. But no. The Germans were not interested in knowing that. If they saw it was falsified, which once happened in those three and a half years, that I met my mother. In some way we got to know where we were, and we made the appointment. She comes by bike from Duren and I came by bike by Drieberg, and we met at a certain point. That happened. But there's only once in all those years. But and I don't know whether she had a different name. We met and we were examined by policemen. I think they were German policemen and they examined and said okay, go on, boy. It was lucky.

Q: Your papers were, I mean, real, that means that there was a person at that age by that name that was born in Indonesia?

A: It was a classmate attending the same high school in Tiel I was. And that was not so unusual, because there were many Dutch people living in Indonesia. And they send their children to Holland for a better education. So this boy, Henry Von Bemo, spontaneously gave me his identity card, which changed the picture. Not we, but an expert. And during all those years, I was Henry Von Bemo. And some people after the war which I met were hiding me know me as Henry. So I had no normal contact with boys and girls. No youth activities. I had a different name.

Q: And you were in a few places, nowhere where kids at your age, only babies or grownup children.

A: There was a place where I met from time to time girl may age. She was working for the, not Jewish. She was working for the underground and brought us ration cards, because everything was rationed. But … I sent her. And I saw her and she was working for the underground. She knew that I was not I. And we knew each other. And I even met, no, she corresponded with me after the war, because she was writing about her experiences. Actually, she studied also medicine and became an anesthesiologist. But she was not a nice person. And she published a book with, it's also at Yad Vashem. It's called in Dutch Enlarge and the Pelse, Louse in the Skin of an Animal, because she was working for the secret service, kind of hidden kind of life, and she brought me the ration cards. But no love or these kinds of things. She did her job.

Q: All of those families that you stayed with were part of the underground?

A: In some way related, because they needed the underground. For instance, for example, ration cards, otherwise they didn't have enough food.

Q: But you know, when you lived on a farm, they could manage without those coupons.

A: Okay. But that was a few months. That was,

Q: Most of the time you were in townhouse?

A: Yeah. Actually I was only twice in a farm. One with cows and goats maybe for a few weeks, and another farm with a widow lady who was keeping goats. But the rest of the families were private families, family of teacher, of a retired teacher, and but in cities.

Q: And we're talking about a town house, and we're talking about the terrace houses, like it's in Amsterdam, when the houses are next to each other?

A: Ah. In general, the house are annexed with the streets and the houses.

Q: Because as far as I understand, in Holland, the houses are very close to each other, that means that you can hear what's going on in the other house. And there are big windows in the front. So if you hide there, first you have to close the drapes or whatever the curtains that they had there. And if the family was not at home, you had to sit completely quiet.

A: Yeah, there were always places in the house where you could hide. Of course you had to take care that you are not standing or walking before an open window. You had to live very careful. And many of the houses where I or also my … had hidden places under the floor or under the roof, so you could, people were well aware of the dangers. And also the people were hiding … we had an abnormal kind of life, also for meals. Sometimes you could join the family, otherwise you could not join the family. It was an abnormal life.

Q: But you know, if we are talking about a couple without children at home, that means that when they go to work, for instance, you have to sit quiet and maybe not even go to the toilet.

A: Well, the toilet that wasn't the problem. I never went out. Never,

Q: But even inside, you had to be quiet.

A: Be careful. Yes, I had to be careful. Or if they had guests, for instance, someone who came for a cup of tea or coffee, you had always to escape to another place in the house, in order not to be seen. It was an abnormal kind of life during almost 3 years. There were exceptions. For instance, I remember there was one of the families, there was no coal, and it has been decided I should go with him to a near forest and steal a tree. We went there with saws. It was dangerous in two ways. Because first of all, I wasn't allowed to exist. Second, you were not allowed to appear in the city after 8 o'clock. It was an evening… Third, you were not allowed to trees from forest. This was a very dangerous period. But we had to do it, otherwise you couldn't prepare food.

Q: What, you know, you were exposed to new habits that you didn't know before of those Christian people. What, which habit of theirs was completely strange or uneasy for you?

A: Difficult to say. The blessing on the meal, we did as Jews. I was a conservative Jewish family. We made ברכות before and after meal. That was not new. But the Christians did the same, but they were reading part of the Bible, not only the תנ"ך the Old Testament, also the New Testament. So it was all grades of new things. Not completely new things.

Q: What about the holidays?

A: Actually, see they went to church and I was alone at the house.

Q: Was there a particular holiday that you liked more than the others?

A: No, I had to hide for all the holidays. It didn't make any difference.

Q: Before the war, at home, I don't remember if you said that you celebrated Santa Claus?

A: Yeah, but it was usual. Not something in particular. It was like Hanuka with the presents and the show and this kind of thing. But we did that of course, yes. But actually, many Dutch Jewish families, they celebrated Santa Claus with all the non-Jewish people.

Q: And Christmas, for instance, usually they slaughtered pig and,

A: They what?

Q: They slaughtered a pig for Christmas. You could eat with them the pig or all the non-Kosher food, without a problem?

A: It was hard, because you had to stay alive. You have to eat. But I don't remember that I had a particular difficulty with this,

Q: Because you said that you went hiding it was October. So the first Christmas was not, it was like a month or two after you went hiding. So at the beginning you remember a problem eating the non-Kosher food?

A: No. On the contrary. Christmas was a happy time for my family, because my grandfather, you see the picture behind you, was a baker. And he could make all the special Christian cakes and cookies. He had so much work that his sons had to help him. It was a golden period for him. So we had no bad memories of those so-called Christian holidays.

Q: But the first Christmas in hiding, do you remember it?

A: No. Answer is, I don't remember ממש לא .

Q: How many times did you have to hide because the Germans or the NSB or the Dutch police came to search? It happened a lot?

A: To church? To

Q: To search?

A: Ah. I don't remember. I used to conduct a very quiet kind of life. You go on tippy-toes to climb the stairs. And I don't remember a specific event.

Q: But it happened often?

A: Well, the regular Sundays, where Christian families go to church and their holidays. There's the

Q: No, I mean the Germans or others that came to search or to check things, it happens many times?

A: Irregular. It came, there were no regular times. … they were not planned on certain days. It was completely unplanned and unexpected and always came as a surprise.

Q: Was there a place that you were mostly sorry to leave to another place, that it was very comfortable to you, for you there?

A: This place where I was staying, had two little children, I was there for a long time. And I had also contact after the war with them. After the children were born and after the war finished, they had a total 9 children. And we kept contact after the war. They lived for a while in Indonesia, and afterwards they came back to Holland. But not in the same place, in the north of the country, Brieman. And we visit them, my wife and I, we visited them, though.

Q: Most of the 11 places you were hiding in were in Drieberg?

A: No in the center of Holland. It was Drieberg and Zeist and Duren, Soukwek and also a little bit Motty, but it's all in the center of Holland.

Q: And how did you move from one place to the other?

A: That is a marvelous question. Because I don't remember how I moved from one place to another. Apparently, I was so scared that I repressed these memories. I don't know where I went by bike or by car or walking. I about this moving from one place to the other, I have not a single memory.

Q: Certainly not by train?

A: I don't think so. It was too dangerous. But I'm telling you, I was so scared that I forgot about it. And I moved from one place to another at least 10 time. I don't remember how.

Q: And usually it was they came and told you you have to move to another place, and on the same day, you had to move?

A: I'm telling you, all of these episodes of movement from one place to the other, it's wiped out. I don't remember it. I don't remember.

Q: And not saying good bye to the people and not the first time in a new family with strangers?

A: I can't tell you. I can't tell you.

Q: Is there a book that you remember reading at that time, that impressed you so much that you still remember it today?

A: Yes. I read the complete encyclopedia. I remember on 1924 volumes. And of course, I'm a curious kind of a person. I will choose the profession I have. But I remember I read the complete encyclopedia.

Q: That means that you had a lot of free time?

A: Yeah, you're taking care of children or things, that's not 24 hours a day.

Q: Most of the families were families without children, that means that the children were old enough to go out?

A: Well, the family, for instance, with Christian .. my father, they had children say, my age, to puberty. And there were three boys and two girls, and I had several conversations with one who corresponded with me after. So we had some more contact. But I can't tell you. There was also a retired couple. And there was a widow who kept the goats. There were no children. Many details I don't remember.

Q: And no one had family, relatives, that came to visit and stayed more than for a coffee or a meal?

A: No, actually not. Because they lived, they lived not far away. They came and visited and went back, say from Duren and Zeist or Duren and Riber. It were, you could do that by bike. I don't remember that people stayed there for a long time. And if not, they were also working in the underground and were familiar with this kind of thing. But that was not so much a problem.

Q: You remember any family in particular that you liked more than the others or that you disliked more than the others?

A: Difficult question. The people with whom I lived for quite a while, we had good relation, because we visit also after the war, and also with my wife and … but the other periods were too short, actually a few weeks or months or two, it's,

Q: I suppose that for you, the most problematic family was the anti-Semitic one?

A: Yes. Because I remember the children was Ian and Albert and Lily and, but it was problematic because of this beginning. And also the, one of the girls, later on, or during the war, she married a German soldier I think. They were not too kosher in this respect. But I stayed there not for a long time. But you remember. One of the boys started to correspond with me after he had his depression and the heart attack, and remembered his father's Christian anti-Semitism. But there was no more than that, thanks.

Q: Did you hear updates of what's going on with the war?

A: Sometimes, because there were secret regular emissions from the BBC. And you knew that because they started always with a part of Beethoven's Symphony, bum-ba-ba-bum. It was a number that was a secret emission of news. And some people had hidden radios. The transistor radio was not invented. It's after the war only. They had small radios with batteries or with crystal or, but somehow news from the outside world could be heard irregularly. And somebody had a radio and one talked to the other, well, the Germans are already there, and the British army is there. You heard some things.

Q: And if you read the newspaper, of course, they couldn't write what they really wanted to. But could you read between the lines what is really going on?

A: I don't remember that I read any newspaper. My wife was hidden in a place where they had a hidden radio, and she wrote a diary. The diary is in Yad Vashem. She wrote a diary during the whole war. But nothing by, in my case, no.

Q: It wasn't common thing in every Dutch family to read a newspaper?

A: But the newspaper, it was not an objective newspaper. They were,

Q: Yes. That's why I asked if you could read in between the lines what,

A: No, no, no.

Q: Is really going on?

A: We got some information through the BBC, irregularly. People had to hide their radios, but the newspapers, they had no news. Under the redaction of Germans or not reliable persons.

Q: Besides the one time that you said you met your mother during that time, you had no information, and nothing about your family?

A: No. I, if you ask me how we met after the war, I don't remember. But for some funny things. For instance, there is a volunteer here in Bet Juliana, and she was very nice. I invited her for coffee. She by the way said, my parents were also hiding Jews during the war. And I said, do you know their names. No, she didn't. But I called her mother during that coffee party here in this chair. I talked to her mother, and it appears that my grandparents were hidden by them.

Q: But you were completely disconnected.

A: No. After we were two weeks together, in October '42, I didn't know anything about other people.

Q: Did you have, do you remember if you had thoughts at that time that maybe you won't meet them again? You were aware of the danger, or as a teenager you don't think about stuff like that?

A: I don't remember it at all that I thought or didn't think. I don't know. I had no contact with my family. At some time, I got a letter from my father when they still were together. And it was, they signed Effi and Emi, in Dutch. Effi, that's אבא, Emi is אמא. And it was two, I remember, only one time. That's in somewhere other, he wrote a letter,

Q: That means that they were together at that time?

A: I think so. I'm not, but it's safe to say we had no contact. I was, an exception was a meeting with my mother and this letter from my father was the exception. We had no regular contacts. And if you ask how we came together after the war, I do not remember. Because the house where we lived until was used by the Germans and abandoned. And afterwards taken by a hotel which was bombed out by the Allied forces. And I really don't know how we got together.

Q: But you remember the last family that you stayed when you were liberated?

A: I knew where I stood when I saw the Canadian tanks. Where I came from, I don't remember.

Q: It was in Driebergen?

A: In Driebergen. But I was in at least three different places in Dribergen. The Trie, the Lindenlam and the Engwech. I remember the addresses. But and it was, I knew that I stood in a high street when I saw the Canadian tanks. But I don't know where I came from, from which place. Don't know. Main thing is I'm sitting here.

Q: I suppose you were happy as maybe you you'd never been before when you saw the Canadians?

A: It was my birthday present.

Q: You were, at that time, 20?

A: In 1945 I was,

Q: 20.

A: 20, yeah. It was my birthday.

Q: And immediately after liberation, you went back to Tiel?

A: No, we didn't go back to Tiel, because the house was occupied by the hotel. We, I remember we went to Utrecht where a brother of my mother was living, but he was killed by the Nazis already in 41. And we lived then on this first floor in a furniture shop. My uncle had a furniture shop, and but he was killed. And there were amount of people. But we were staying in the beginning in the living room on top of the furniture store. But I don't know how we met and how,

Q: But for you, as a 20 year old man, at that time, the moment you were liberated, you went back to Tiel, because for you it was obvious that you're going to meet,

A: No, Tiel was bombed,

Q: The familiy?

A: Tiel was bombed, and a majority of the city there weren't houses anymore.

Q: You knew that before you went back?

A: We didn't go back to Tiel. We started living in Utrecht on top of this furniture shop of my uncle. But I don't remember any details how we knew where we are and where to meet. It simply disappeared. Can't find my,

Q: I suppose it was very exciting to,

A: Apparently. But

Q: Traumatic? Not exciting?

A: One can be one and the other. But I don't remember details. I remember it my… very soon in 1945, met a soldier of the Jewish Brigades, married him and went to Israel already in '46 or '45, very soon. So she disappeared very fast. But my parents, I don't remember. At that time, my mother was also sick from breast cancer, and I don't know to what extent we did something about it. We went to a surgeon who was an national socialist, and she was operated a year later. But she died already in '49 from metastasis from, what's metastasis , in Hebrew?

Q: גרורות?

A: גרורות, כן, כןBut then she was 52. But how we met, I was, where we were the first, these weeks and months after the liberation, I don't remember. Because we stayed for a short while on top of this furniture shop. I remember also we stayed in one place of an old lady near Hacht. You know what a Hacht is. It was near a canal. But I don't know how, details I don't remember.

Q: When you say "we", is you, your parents?

A: And I.

Q: But I suppose it was together with your parents?

A: With my mother and father.

Q: And your grandparents also?

A: I don't know where we stayed and where we meet. And remember that I visited them at the Jewish home for old people in Rotterdam. But that was some time after the war. But how we met and all the details, some details are from this volunteer who works here. But many details, really, I don't know at all.

Q: And your parents, after the war, went back to their old jobs?

A: First of all, my mother was an accountant, and she had an office in the house, until, but we didn't go back to the house. It was occupied by the hotel.

Q: So in Utrecht, she didn't work as an accountant?

A: I don't think so. First of all, she was not healthy. And second, she had no office. We lived in this place on top of the furniture shop. No, no. I'm almost sure she didn't work at all over there.

Q: And what about you? You wanted to study, but you missed a few years of school.

A: I'll tell you, at least what I remember. I was at a Jewish high school. But there were not enough students for the last class. There are 6 classes and 5 and 6 were divided in 5-alpha and 6-alpha, 5-beta, 6-beta. And then there was a Dutch minister of education, who decided that boys and girls who could not finish high school, they got the diploma without Bagrut. And then I got a Bagrut diploma for Alpha, and it was to study medicine. So I had to work over myself for additional exam. It was additional exam number 155 in the law of education, in order to get a diploma Beta, in order to study medicine.

Q: Okay, after reading the whole encyclopedia, I suppose it wasn't such a big deal for you?

A: Two years of chemistry, biology and all the things. It's something. I remember I had also some lessons from a professor of mathematics, but I worked very hard in order to pick up the stuff of two years, biology and chemistry and physics, it was quite difficult.

Q: Who provided the family, you said your parents couldn't work after the war, you were studying?

A: Good question. No, I don't know. I don't know. I know my father remarried very soon. My mother asked him to remarry. She said if I'm not alive you should marry this lady, a good friend of us.

Q: Oh, she said not only you have to remarry, but she told him who to marry after her?

A: She died in February and my father remarried in August, according to the command of my mother. And he was very happy. It's very happy in life to choose your mother.

Q: So you studied, you completed what you missed during the war, and then it was obvious for you that you want to study medicine?

A: Yeah, I know that from the age of 5.

Q: And it wasn't a problem like here in Israel, that even if you want to study medicine, it's very difficult to be accepted to the medicine faculty?

A: It was difficult, because the universities were closed during the war. So there were many students. And I studied medicine in Utrecht, but I was a stagier in Rotterdam, because in Utrecht, there were not enough places for stagier. But I was stagier for about 2 and a half years in Rotterdam.

Q: But you studied medicine in Utrecht?

A: In Utrecht, yeah.

Q: From 1946-7?

A: .. of '46. And I actually wrote that down here. I was in Israel from 48 to 49. I volunteered for the,

Q: But '46 you began your medicine studies.

A: '46, yes. And I did that Utrecht '46to '48. '48-'49 I was in Israel. '49 to '54 I was in Rotterdam. I graduated in Rotterdam.

Q: But you are a medicine student. What made you leave your studies in the middle and go to a place in the middle of nowhere?

A: The answer is Zionism.

Q: You became Zionist?

A: We were, my sister and I and a friend of my sister were always Zionist. Those three persons. And we all, we're very easy, early going to Israel. My sister married a soldier of the Jewish Brigade. How her friend came here, I don't know. But I volunteered for the army in '48. I stopped my studies.

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Q: Okay, you were a Zionist before the war, but you were children. And okay, your sister kept being Zionist and married,

A: A soldier of the Jewish Brigade.

Q: And went to Israel. But it's something else to put on hold your studies and to go volunteer.

A: You are quite right. That is the mishugas of Zionism.

Q: What were you thinking that you're going to fight for Israel, or what was your imagination?

A: I went with two boys by train from Utrecht to Marseilles. We got some military training in a camp of the Hagana, Grand Arenas. And then we went by ship, the Capmark to Israel. And there after one day, in Netanya, I was in the army already.

Q: And that was during the Independence War?

A: Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was in '48.

Q: You can't say that you were a real soldier already?

A: I was a member of the,

Q: When you joined the army?

A: I was in a, what do you call it, a paramedic.

Q: Oh, you weren't front soldier, but,

A: No.

Q: you were in the,

A: A medical, in חיל הרפואה.

Q: Medical services.

A: And I stayed for the time in Sheikh Monas. I was responsible for wounded soldiers and sick soldiers.

Q: You were like something like a paramedic?

A: A paramedic. Yeah, I saw the word, I couldn't get the word. This is, I stayed for more Miluim. I did Miluim until 55. Then I stayed for many times in Sinai, Suez Canal, aboard this,

Q: For you it was the first time that you came to Israel. That was the first time after you sister came to Palestine that you saw her again?

A: My sister was in, Huliot. She was in Kibbutz.

Q: And there are many Dutch people there. But it's very far away in the North? Today it's Sde Nechemia.

A: I went by טרמפים. As a soldier, when I got a weekend off, I went by טרמפים to the north to see my sister.

Q: How did you manage with, in the Army without speaking Hebrew? You know not many of the soldiers, unfortunately, spoke Dutch.

A: First of all, many of the wounded soldiers were volunteers, and they spoke Yiddish, which I didn't know. Second, I had very good Hebrew lessons since age 5, because the same rabbi who taught children in high school who want to be Christian rabbis, Christian reverends, they got already תנ"ך Hebrew in high school. And my father asked this man to each my sister and me Hebrew at home.

Q: But it was real Hebrew that you remembered and you could use it for a daily speaking?

A: Conversation? I'll tell you even another example. After 3 months, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I dreamt in Hebrew. Now, you're convinced.

Q: Yeah, that's convincing. How was it for you this year in Israel between '48 and '49.

A: Interesting. I had some very good friends. Because,

Q: You know, at that time, it was only the establishment of the State. It was, comparing to Holland, to Utrecht, it was quite primitive.

A: It was quite primitive.

Q: But nice primitive.

A: It was a nice time. I made some friends. I visited my sister. I got some, I earned some money. And I bought, with the first money that I earned in the Israeli army, I bought a book of Bialik.

Q: Could you, at that time, could you already read Bialik?

A: I told you we got Hebrew lessons in,

Q: Yeah, but you know, even people who were born here have great difficulties reading Bialik.

A: No, after I finished the encyclopedia, I could also read Bialik.

Q: And it was obvious for you that you are volunteering here, but you're going back to finish your medicine,

A: Yeah.

Q: Studies?

A: Yeah, yeah. But it was earlier than expected, because my mother was sick and was dying.

Q: You were already there when she died?

A: I was there. That was in '49. I got a telegram that she was dying. I wanted a discharge from the army. It was not easy. It was not easy to get the plane, because there was no regular flights. And we left in I think February or March '49 with bad weather, and then we had to make an emergency landing, guess where? In לוב. I spent one or two nights in לוב and then the pilot said I'm not going further than Geneva. So he flew it from Lybia to Geneva. And then I took the train from Geneva to Holland. And I missed the funeral of my mother. It was too late. That happened in March, February-March '49.

Q: When you went to Palestine in '48, you knew that your mother is very sick.

A: Yes. Not only that, she had an operation, a very big operation where they took the breast out and the lymph nodes and they had to take care of the scar. I was at that time, medical student, and they asked me to take care of the scar, so I knew that. And I said good bye to her when I left. But I missed the funeral. And it was not a big surprise. We knew she was sick, had the operation and,

Q: And after coming back from that time, it was already Israel, you went back to your studies. This time in Rotterdam?

A: No, it was Utrecht, still. I remember visits in the academic hospital, and I went there without a tie. Because I was used to Israel. And the director of that department says if I see you once more without a tie, I give you,

Q: A kick.

A: A kick, and you're not allowed to come over here. That was my חזרה לנורמליות.

Q: So you continued your studies in Utrecht and,

A: And Rotterdam.

Q: Rotterdam. Were you active in any Zionist organization at that time, after the war?

A: Not particularly. But in 1954, I attended a Tu Bishvat meeting of the NZO, the Zionist Student Organization, where I met my sister-in-law, who was a medical students, and through her, the sister-in-law , I met my father-in-law, my future father-in-law. My sister-in-law says, this is my father. He's alone. My mother was killed by the Nazis already in '41. So I got to know my father-in-law. And he said, in a few months, I have another daughter, she's working in the Wietzman Institute, and she comes to visit me. Would you like to see her. And that's the beginning of the end, because after two and a half days, I asked her to marry me. Two and a half days.

Q: How was living in Holland after the war? Did you feel any, because you said that in Holland there is a weak anti-Semitism. Maybe we can say latent anti-Semitism. How was it after the war?

A: I give you the example, that I appeared in the hospital without a tie,

Q: Yeah, but that has,

A: That's exactly what it is. Because in Israel you feel free to do,

Q: Okay, because we are in the Mediterranean. But I can't say that it's anti-Semitism.

A: I felt that it's anti-Semitism.

Q: Really?

A: Yeah.

Q: And in other instances, your professors, your colleagues, on the street,

A: No, no, no.

Q: Did you feel anti-Semitism.

A: No, that was the real expression of anti-Semitism. He knew that I came back from Israel. This is the professor who threw me out of the department.

Q: You know, usually people say that we have prejudice about Dutch people that they are really Philoshemic and they helped, all of them helped the Jews. And of course we know it's not true. But after the war, did people, did they brag that we helped the Jews, we hid the Jews?

A: What happened is the following things. That the information the Israelis got was from people saved by Christian or communist Dutch people, who were not anti-Semitic, except for one or two. So the first amount of information was very philo-Hollandic. But after the latent anti-Semitism, they came later on. According to the example I gave you, this morning on the Dutch police man.

Q: You felt Dutch or was it obvious for you that you're not going to stay there forever?

A: I was feel this already before. But I interrupted my studies in order to prepare my stay in Israel.

Q: So you knew that you are studying here and you're getting a profession, but you're not going to stay in Holland?

A: 100 percent. I arrived in Israel January 18th. I started working February 1, in Israel.

Q: And even after being in Israel for a year, it didn't discourage you to stay in Holland?

A: No, no.

Q: Didn't you like it in Holland, you really liked it very much in Israel?

A: It's a difficult question. I'm very attached to the Dutch language. Very attached to all Dutch language, literature. I'm attached to several landscapes. For instance, you see this painting here on the wall, it's a typical Dutch landscape. I love that. But I'm not crying that I'm not living there. Even if people would offer me millions right now, whatever you want, I wouldn't like to go back to Holland. But actually, like I told you, such as the literature, the language, the landscape, certainly I'm very attached to it.

Q: When you left Holland to come to Israel, you were already a psychiatrist, or was it only in Israel that you decided that you wanted to become one?

A: I decided already in high school that I want to be a psychiatrist. But I study it in Jerusalem, New York, in Denmark, in different places. So I wanted to a be a doctor since age 5, because my maternal grandmother expected for me to cure her eyes, which I didn't. But psychiatrist, a couple of people in high school discussed and Freud and Hume, and we had a people who were interested at that time.

Q: So you came to Israel in '55?

A: In '55.

Q: Together with your new wife?

A: I met my wife in '54 in this, and always, during our vacation. It was Hanuka. On the 8th light of Hanuka, I asked her to marry me. She went back to the Weitzman Institute. And I came, that was '54. '55 I got my visa to come to Israel, and I came there on January 19th, 3 days after her birthday. And she came with a lot of strawberries to pick me up from.

Q: So in Holland you left your father, your,

A: Who remarried. Who was remarried, yeah.

Q: And you came to Israel. Immediately you had a job. And you completed your studies, you said, in Jerusalem and,

A: And America, and also Denmark.

Q: And you lived in Jerusalem at first?

A: From '55 to '59 we lived in Jerusalem. Two of our children were born in Jerusalem. Then we spent two years in America where the third child was born. And then from '59 to '65 I was the head of the psychiatric clinic in Kupat Holim in Jerusalem. And from '65 to I don't know, I wrote it down, from '65 to '95, I worked in Ichilov.

Q: I want to hear a little bit, if it's possible, about you as a psychiatrist meeting patients who are Holocaust survivors? How was it for you?

A: This is a very good question. Because the general attitude at that time in '55, '56 '57, was כל היהודים אותו דבר . There was no interest specifically in Holocaust survivors.

Q: Okay. But it was also common at that time that people didn't talk about it so much. But when they, it wasn't so common to go to a psychiatrist at that time also. So if you are already going to a psychiatrist, I suppose you are talking about it?

A: Let me tell you, I worked for four years in the Talbieh Hospital in Jerusalem, and there was a general tendency to regard all patients as Jews, whether they, if they came from Yemen or Morocco or from the concentration camps. I remember very well, a young man, after a suicide attempt, he was deeply depressed. And I asked him, how come you're so deeply depressed? החבר היה צבר. The צברים were more regarded as people who were going through the Holocaust. That came slowly and gradually than the insurance company started paying for it. So then there was a specific interest in to what extent people are suffering from the concentration camp.

Q: But,

A: Let me finish just one second. But the atmosphere was to regard all Jews as Jews. Yemenites, people from concentration camps, Iraqis, there was a tendency.

Q: But as a professional, as a psychiatrist, how can you explain it that they consider someone who came from Iraq or from Morocco, and came from the concentration camps, how could they put them in the same place?

A: I'm not surprised to hear, or to see you surprised, because it's really surprising. At this time, before all the insurance things worked out, the general attitude, I remember it very well in the hospital was all Jews are Jews. We don't make a difference between a Yemenite woman, an Iraqi man, and,

Q: But when someone, a new patient comes to the hospital, you are having an intake, right? So you are talking about his history?

A: I'm not surprised about your surprised, because it's really what happened in the first years after the end of World War II. The whole thing of the concentration camp syndrome is a rather new thing in psychiatry. I'll tell you this. This is an interesting story, because it started with the development of the insurance business. Insurance was, in the beginning, only,

Q: You're talking about the compensations from Germany?

A: Yes, and they were actually beginning, if you could convince the German authorities that there was real damage. It started actually with the תותחנים. They said well, I suffered so much from the noise of the cannons, then you say, okay, we'll make an examination and see. But the people who were suffering from concentration camp syndrome, they had not deviations of the laboratory findings. According to the laboratory they were normal. They had psychological symptoms.

Q: But I’m not talking about insurance now, I'm talking about patients that you see and that they are suffering of depression. They are suffering of how you call it, desert anxiety or things like that, that today we know are connecting directly to that time. But even as a patient, you saw special symptoms?

A: Yeah. I’m not surprised about your surprise, because it's real. There was not awareness of specific symptoms due to a stay in a concentration camp.

Q: They didn't even tell you what was going on?

A: Yes. It was written depression. And not recent concentration syndrome, because it didn't exist yet. The doctors were not,

Q: Okay, not concentration camps. I'm talking about even people like you, that were children who were hiding and lost the family and came here to Israel as orphan children.

A: So the doctor wrote in his file, reactive depression. And there was no awareness. It's a new development, not only in insurance business but for psychiatry, it was new. It started during World War II and afterwards. It didn't exist at all.

Q: I'm talking about, for instance, Freud, about all those great psychiatrists who are talking about investigating the past and the relations with your parents and etc. At that time, you didn't deal with it?

A: Yes, but it was the influence a person got in his early years. It was, he didn't make it in his oral period, in his anal period, in the latency. Nobody was thinking about events like a concentration camp,

Q: Or even being hiding in a basement for two years.

A: In psychiatry, this whole idea is new idea, which developed in World War II, after World War II. But it didn't exist when we were students. Nobody was talking about the concentration camps yet. Who thought about the thing that a whole people would be in a camp without food and with hard labor and without clothes. Nobody thought about it.

Q: But even if at that time you didn't treat them differently than the others, do you think that, do you remember if a bigger percentage of psychiatric patients were Holocaust survivors?

A: I'm telling you this whole idea of the concentration camp,

Q: Yes, but I'm talking now when you, when you look retrospective, there was a bigger percentage of Holocaust survivors as psychiatric patients than the average in the population?

A: I understand your question, but I'm telling you this method of names, a Jew from Iraq, they suffer very seriously from anti-Semitism. And they had depressions. And they got their diagnosis, reactive depression. Or it was in the family. It was a … depression. But the whole idea to regard the stay in the camp as a whole, by physical and nonphysical factors, is a new development.

Q: New, you mean during the '60s the '70s?

A: Yes, yes. You can read the literature about it. It's a whole new idea. And which, of course, got utilized also by the insurance company, because the more you can convince people that you suffer sleepless nights or fear or things like that, the more money you get. So the interest in studying it, was a late development.

Q: But even if we keep aside the business of the insurance and what's going on with that, during the '70s, let's say, when it was already, there was the awareness to what happened to the Holocaust survivors, did you have more Holocaust survivors relatively to their number in the population, that suffered from, let's say, post-trauma.

A: I can't answer that. I don't know.

Q: Even in the '70s?

A: I can't answer that. I don't know. Statistically I can't answer that.

Q: You said that there was the beginning of research about that people in that period. Did you make any research about it?

A: This is a whole subject. I don't know where this fits into this discussion, but this is a whole development. Because and psychiatry changed. See, 100 years ago, if a patient came to a doctor and he said I'm complaining about this this, that, he said הוא משוגע כמו האבא שלו. They believed only in heredity. It's in the family. Don't pay any attention. Freud added some more understanding, that people can be born as healthy people, but as a result of their education and their environment, they development psychiatric symptoms. Okay? That was the first level. Later on, the insurance companies started, they say every person is exposed to specific conditions then he is sick. But then afterwards, after the … then twenty years after the end of the war, there was the beginning of, a specific combination, that if you were exposed not to cannons and not to this, but just to fear and to hunger, you can become a psychiatric patient. That's a later development. It was not, I'm telling you, when I came to Talbieh, everybody was regarded as a Jew. That was already something. And they, this young patient, who was terribly depressed because a friend of him had, I said, למה אתה כל כך עצוב? מכיוון שהוא היה צבר . It was more important that people was born in the country, the new country, than he was living in a concentration camp. It's a very interesting question and a very interesting subject. But it is new. It's, in psychiatry, it's a new development.

Q: You are a professor, right? And to become a professor, you have to publish and to make researchers. So during the years you worked as a psychiatrist for 40 years?

A: Something like that.

Q: In that time, did any of your researches of your studies connected to the Holocaust in any connection?

A: I like your question, because this was exactly what I did not do. I was interested in Yemenite patients and Iraqi patients, and patients all over the world, but not specifically from concentration camps.

Q: Because you felt close to those subjects? Not only camps, I'm talking about hiding, about all kinds of survivors?

A: I came to Israel, and I met for the first time in my life, Polish patients, Yemenite patients, Iraqi patients. And I wrote about their specific symptoms. And all the publications, they are about social psychiatric subjects. Not about the Holocaust. But here in,

Q: Social,

A: Psychiatric phenomenon.

Q: That means the influence of the surrounding and the,

A: נכון

Q: And the social influence about patients?

A: Yeah. But as I told you, your question is really a new development in psychiatry, psychiatry is developing all the time, and this is a new science. It's not like משה רבינו that it's a new science. And it's changing in my time. Tomorrow, I'll attend a congress in Ramat Gan talking about new approaches to psychiatry, which I really, I don't know them. It's developing all the time.

Q: You can define yourself as Freudian?

A: I had Freudian education at least ten years. I was analyzed and a seminar, and also in America I attended psychoanalytic seminars. But I'm not saying that I'm an analyst. I’m a psychiatrist with interests in society more than in internal psychological problems. I was also a teacher at the school of social work in Jerusalem.

Q: But when you work in a hospital, like you worked for many years in Ichilov, you are a proper classic psychiatrist?

A: No, but in Ichilov I developed the whole service. We had outpatient clinic; we have psychogeriatric patients, consultation services, so all the … I give you an example. Many people were in concentration camps and had a treatment on orthopedic wards, and have to be in a plaster of Paris and could not move, they felt like they were in a concentration camp. So I’m aware of it. And it's called a psychiatric symptom. They call me to see a patient. And I said well, it's because he was in a concentration camp. He cannot move. He cannot get out. So of course I'm aware of it, but that's a development, not in the years immediately after '45.

Q: Yes, but let's say in the '70s and the '80s.

A: Oh, of course, of course. It's very important subject. We have here another psychiatrist in Bet Juliana, Professor Dausenberg. He dealt a lot with post-traumatic, mainly from soldiers who were in fights, but also concentration camp people. So everybody chooses what he likes.

Q: But you know, you are a psychiatrist. If I want you to analyze why were you drawn to another subject and get away from the subject of the Holocaust, do you have an answer?

A: I'm interested in people and suffering people, and we'll see what comes out of it. But I don't know in the beginning what will interest me. For instance, a lady comes to me her in the … she has an obsessive compulsive disorder. She has to touch all mezuzot in the street and to kiss them otherwise she can't get home. She says she's healthy, she's working, and she, before all the holidays she calls me and it has nothing to do with Holocaust. So there are all kind of different people and different symptoms and different diagnoses. But I'm telling you, the whole body of psychiatry changed after World War II.

Q: You define yourself as a Holocaust survivor?

A: Not particular. No.

Q: Why?

A: Why? Because I'm a survivor. I do not suffer, as far as I know, from symptoms related to the Holocaust.

Q: Nothing?

A: No, just name it.

Q: I don't know, three years of hiding?

A: No.

Q: You're not even claustrophobic?

A: Even not, no. But there's also soldiers who do not suffer from post-traumatic syndrome. I was at the Suez Canal. I was hardly alive after the shooting of the Egyptians. But I'm not regarding myself as a war victim.

Q: So your adjustment in Israel was very quick and smooth, as I understand?

A: I'm usually saying I'm very luck. I arrived, I told you, January 18, and I started working February 1. And I worked for Kupat Holim then in Talbieh and outpatient clinic. And before I got into Ichilov, I got three other offers I could start, in Be'er Sheva and Afula and Yaffo. I was very lucky. I'm not regarding myself as a victim. I'm glad I survived. Not everybody has to suffer from concentration camp syndrome.

Q: And here as we said, you adjusted very nice, very quickly?

A: What? What what?

Q: You were adjusted here very quickly in Israel. And you said you have three children. And how many grandchildren?

A: 4. Two boys, two girls.

Q: And is there anything else you want to add before we finish the interview?

A: We finished today?

Q: Unless you have something else to add?

A: No, actually not. We left our parents in Europe, my sister and I, to go to the Holy Land. And so our children are leaving us, abandoning us in the Holy Land. But this is incidental. I think, the two boys are more Leftist than the girl, because our daughter was a social worker in the army, and she even added one year. Instead of serving two years, she worked 3 years as a social worker in the army.

Q: It's not problematic for you that all your children are living abroad?

A: It's not problematic, but it's not nice.

Q: Of course you miss them and it's not easy. But you don't have a problem ideologically with the fact that they live abroad?

A: No. I'm very … we have three children. I've very … for grandchildren. But what they do to us, we did to our parents. And we have, there's no big family meetings here, because I'm not going to hi wave to my sister every day, and because we have no contact. She is demented. And I remember very well, that we have the Seder in Ramat Hasharon or in France, several times, I come back to the seder in France, partly in French, partly in Hebrew. And I missed it here. I'm not saying I'm not missing it. I really miss that here, but c'est la vie. Because you can't have everything you want.

Q: Okay. Thank you very much.

(End of audio)