Anna Greenberger - August 24, 1982
Standing Up to an Ex-Nazi
The next thing--next day, we had to go away and we didn't tell the Nazi that we are going away. We thought--I told Alex--I show it to him. Always when I was sending for Alex food. So he said, "Why you sending for your husband to ???, to ???" A pig is ???, you know. I said, "you ???, not my husband." But I wasn't afraid. They didn't pay out Alex. They said, "Why are you going to America? You will be there just for worker. I give you already store and you sit with your wife and you will be a millionaire," the Nazi told us. Alex said, "I don't want to be in Paraguay even as President. I don't want to live here." So Alex was afraid to go to pick up the money. He said, "Ansi you go and ask for the money." So I went in the store and there was the ???, the boss. And I ask for the money. He says uh, "I don't have money, you go to my son." I called him Hitler-Jugend. He was probably. You know what the Hitler-Jugend.
Yeah.
He was probably. Gunter was his name. And uh, good thing that that Sonya came with me in the factory. We went with the bus. The bus--they run busses just with the ???, you see sometimes in the old movies. We went to San Lorenzo and I go in, in the factory and they knew that we are Jews and we knew that they are Germans, but we didn't have another choice because we would have starved. And uh, I go in and he says to me, "Get out of here," the Gunter--the son. And I thought he's joking. We never--I mean, he knew we are Jews and we knew who they were. We knew that uh, we, they were Nazis and everything. And we knew that he has in ??? and Bormann and uh, those people. And I said, "You sending me out uh, from the factory?" He said, "Yes, get out of here." I said, "I am not going." I said, "Give me the money. You owe money for my husband." He said, "Where is your husband?" I said, "My husband is busy, you give me the money." He said--he gave me some money--he said, "Get out of here." He said, "Because I throw you out and I will call you can't leave Paraguay." I said, "What are you talking about, you German." I said, "What do you think what is a Germany? That's not 1939 or 1940." I spoke German. I said, "That 1955 and I am not afraid of you, you German." I said, "You can't do nothing for me anymore." I said, "Call the police. You will be in jail, not me." I says, "I have my papers black and white. I can leave Paraguay anytime I want. But you'll end up in jail." I said, "You Nazi. I said, you can't scare me anymore." But I was lucky that I was with Sonya. He would have killed me maybe. And the rest, you know, the Paraguayan--they didn't know what's going on. We were yelling at each other. I said, "You German." I said, "You Nazi. You scared?" I said, "You want to scare me?" I said, ???. I said, "That's 1955." That's when we came to United States. So he gave me some money, but he didn't give me the whole amount. I said, "Why aren't you giving me the whole amount?" He says, "That's all you get. You like it or not." I said, "It's all right, the rest you can give it to doctor." And I felt later bad because his mother was a very good woman and we heard that she had her breast removed shortly when we left and his father had a stroke.
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