Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

You, you were--let me take you back to when you were smuggling. Your uh, the, the, the smuggling ring was smuggling before the ghetto was est...set up, is that right?

Yeah, we started before the ghetto.

And what about after the ghetto was set up?

Same way. We keep on going the same way. We used to get in the ghetto. We used to pay, you know, the guard for the ghetto, the Jewish guard.

The Jewish police?

We used to pay off the German, like here was the door. So, when he looked in, they opened and we got through, you know, just get in...

Through the gates?

...you know, the same way.

Through the gates?

Yeah, and out the same way. I used to get in the streetcar, you know. I used to payoff the--the streetcar used to slow down, jump in the streetcar. Lay down 'til we got to a certain point, you know. We want to get out.

Weren't there Polish police guarding the s...the streetcar?

Yeah, we hide from the Polish police. Some looked away. You know, you gotta pay. Everything pay. You have to have a pocket with money. See, when I went out from Warsaw and I used to smuggle to ghetto, it's about uh, I would say about, about less than half a mile, was the train station. You know, that's where you used to take the train. I didn't, I didn't look, look like Jewish. I wear one of my German hats, you know, with big, big, big boots, you know. Fitted boots, they call ??? boots, fitted high-heel. No, not high-heel, high, high here.

Yeah, hob-nailed boots they were called.

Yeah, that's what I wear and, and a, a little jacket that looked like a navy coat, a pea coat, you know, like a German was wearing, a pea coat, navy.

So, so you were, you had a German outfit on?

Hm?

You were wearing a German uniform?

Not a uniform, but...

German clothes?

Yeah, just like a German, like they used to dress themselves.