Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Mondry - June 15, 22, 29 & July 13, 1992

And then she invited you to Casablanca.

No. So. after a week she'd say, she called me up, would you like to Casablanca for the weekend, she said. I had a passport from Red Cross. I was the only one, I had a passport. I, I knew another girl, a secretary there, from the office of Red Cross, you know. It cost me $500 to get, you know, international passport.

Was this Rossanna?

This way, you know, they had to let me back in.

Was the woman Rossanna, the woman who got you a passport?

Hm?

Rossanna, was that her name?

She helped me to get it.

Yeah.

She was in Italy, she only was, like, a resident. You know, if you left Italy they have a right not to let you in if you didn't have a permit to come in. This way with a, with a Red Cross passport, it was like, uh, new citizen, you know, they have to let you in. I had her tell the store is anything wrong? I mean, I didn't pay no money, but I figured I give, you know, a month of having... She had to give to some other people. Everything was black market, after all. You couldn't get nothing for nothing. On the way back we stopped in Beirut, in Lebanon for a day. See, what happened, she has to go, they opened a new café. They call it Café, Café de Paris, you know, in Casablanca or something. In Morocco, you know, and she had to be there, a write-up, a write-up. Who was there, you know. You know, the funny thing, the same woman, I don't know if you remember there was a Billy Rose, entertainment business.

Sure.

You're too young, how can you?

I remember.

He opened in New York and ??? a night club, they call it Copacabana.

Copacabana.

I was in the seat and I had friends in the business say, give me a ticket. And I was at the opening. And I was sitting there, you know, with some company, and somebody hit me in the head. And I turned around looking over, hey, this is your friend's girl here, a small world, huh?

Do you know her name, do you remember her name?

And I look at her, she was with some other people with cameras, I remember. What you doing here, say, what are you doing? Well, she didn't have no time, she had to leave in the morning. Small world, huh?