Simon Maroko - February 19 & 26, 1986
Avoids Deportation III
What about the next escape?
Next escape. Uh, we are going to go back and forth I'm sure.
All right.
Uh, uh, I have it here in chrono...chronological order. Um, one day I was waking up after working there. We were working obviously at night. Civil defense it meant that we were responsible that no light would be visible to any airplanes 'cause we might be bombed or the Germans might think that we were trying to contact the Allied ene...their enemies and so on. So we slept there on stretchers. I woke up on morning and I heard over the PA that we all had--wait a minute, there was this, not the first time, it was the second time. Can you...[interruption in interview] Um, as I said, I went faithfully to the synagogues. I was in the Great Synagogue around Tisha B'Av in 1943. There was an announcement made that with our rations for cheese we could qualify for kosher cheese. But we had to contact the office of the rabbinate in order to uh, get it. So the following Wednesday, I went to the office of the chief rabbinate, which was very close to the Portuguese and their Great Synagogue. They told me there that I would need to round up enough other people with coupons so that we would qualify for one wheel, which was quite a job for me. So I left there and I thought, all right, I'll try my best. Well, walking a very short distance a man in civilian uh, clothes stopped me and asked for my ID. I showed him my ID, and uh, he said, "Okay come with me.:" He went across the street to a place where there was a blacksmith and he asked me to wait outside. I was not left alone, there was another man in civilian clothes.
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