Simon Maroko - February 19 & 26, 1986
Avoids Deportation IV
These were Dutch?
Dutch. Who was standing there leaning against the doorpost, but of course keeping an eye on me so that I would not run away. It took them quite awhile inside and he came out with another man. My guess is that they probably were uh, wondering, hey this man must have been before in the uh, prison uh, what did he do, etc. Because as I said, it was obvious for anyone more than just a superficial inspection of the ID. So he came out and says, "You know where to go." I played dumb and I asked, "What do you mean?" He said, "To the prison." He probably was--he had been there before, we are going in there. So I was walking through the--this was right next to the Jewish street, this was the name of the street in Amsterdam. And um, I was walking there and they were on bicycles and I could see that they had a revolver, I knew that they were armed. And um, people were passing, coming across me from the other direction. And I remembered I was thinking, people, don't you realize what's happening to me. I might be led to my death. And I realized that at the time already. And no one did anything. My thoughts were not audible and I was disappointed. There was one point where the thought crossed my mind, they have to make a turn and I have to go on the other side in order to walk there, as part of the, the regular route to go to that uh, location of the prison. And a thought crossed my mind, maybe I could run here. And I thought oh, I better not. They probably would kill me. If I would have known then what I know now about arms, because I got trained in the Israeli uh, Tzahal--in the armed defense forces, I might have done it. On the other hand, maybe I would have been killed then. Uh, anyway, I walked there and I was brought to the prison. And I told right away to the Jewish Council, "I want you to know, my ID is one that has been marked. I've been here before. Uh, can you try and help me as much as you can." They said, "Okay, we'll try what we can do." Um, that was on Wednesday afternoon. We slept there that night. While there in the afternoon, I met the son--eleven or so years old, of someone who I had known as a patient under guard in the Jewish hospital. I asked this young guy who was very pre-mature--mature for his age. "Uh, can people escape from here? Has it ever happened? For example, has anyone going, gone to the balcony on the first floor and hanging from hands made a quite high jump, but uh, still uh, better than nothing." Uh, he said, "I have something better. If ever, if, you don't have to do that. I wa...I ??? prepared for doing that." He said, "I can do something but it will cost you money." We haggled a little bit over the money. Uh, he asked more, I said, "I don't have that." I lied to him. I had a little bit more money, I didn't want to give him my last penny.
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