Simon Maroko - February 19 & 26, 1986
Hiding II
And now I was uh, approaching downstairs uh, probably on the top, uh, not making any noise. I heard people that there are people there. So I froze there and I stayed there without moving a thing. And I heard that there was uh, a German soldier, and a girl, a woman, a woman who w...who stand up and there were men, other things, they also made a remark about that sign. And they said something like it was a Dutch saying, which I don't remember literally. And it says uh, it went, it went something like this. Where fools and idiots place their names on doors and windows or something of that nature. And I was thinking hey, you might think that I'm an idiot, but at least I'm still alive. ??? There was also an occasion then when I was alone at home and someone rang the bell. I didn't know what to do. I decided not to answer the bell because for one thing, from our third and fourth floor you could not see who it was there. You had no way of uh, looking there. Some houses in Holland are built with--there is a mirror--and you can--it's called the spy, you can spy. You can just look up and see who's standing there. We had what's called in Dutch ??? which means it's like a, a little hall which was coming off the sidewalk in that group of ???. When that bell rang, I wanted to try and see if I could know who that was. And we had a uh, ??? where we had a balcony, the door had to be opened, so all I had to do was to crawl on all fours without raising my head as much as possible. And I had a-- for a split second, a peek over the balcony from the floor and I could see there must be a man standing there. And right away I went back. I don't know if the man saw me. I'll never find out probably. I had no idea who it was. It could have been a Jew even. To this very day, I don't know, but I had decided I'm not going to give any reason. Whoever it is, I am not here. ???.
Did the officials think that you had been deported? Because your name was on a list.
On one hand the officials must have known that I was deported. On the other hand they must have found out that I was not a list of those that arrived in Westerbork. It was between the theater and Westerbork. And I didn't know whether it was a civilian or an undercover agent that was trying to find me, whatever. It could have been a Jew, I don't know. I have somehow the feeling that it might have been a Jew. But I was not in any position that I wanted to take that risk.
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