Esther Posner - March 11, 1986
Passing as a Gentile II
...back to the Mos's but I just wanted to mention one thing that was a lot more difficult in Enschede than it was in Amsterdam: that was the bombardments. Uh, because of all the railroads going out of Enschede the city was bombarded mercilessly, constantly and uh, we were very fearful of that. All right uh, when I was allowed to visit the Mos's it was the vacation time, and they took me with them wherever they went. They told me the story afterwards that they told some people that I was a Jewish child and, and these people--they, they said uh, you know, "Wouldn't it be terrible if something happened to this child?" and the people gave me all kinds of food and candy and, and uh, stuff like that. Um, but the one incident that I remember very well is going into the ho...inside--into the house and putting on Dirk's long boots and his ca...taking his cap and putting on his jacket and walking around down the street and putting my--putting out my arm and saying "Verboten, verboten," which means, forbidden for Jews. And the neighborhood children were around and there were some adults around too and they, they, they were just shocked. They said, "Where did she ever hear this?" And I didn't realize that people in Enschede--they hadn't seen this. It was something that I had seen in Amsterdam where uh, the Nazis stood around and not allowed Jews into certain streets. It didn't happen in Enschede because there weren't too many Jews in Enschede. And Dirk and Maria M...I couldn't understand why Dirk and Maria Mos were so upset and wanted me to get back in the house and take off my costumes when I was having so much fun. But um, you know, they got me back in the house and I took it off and they told me why I had--what I had done and why I shouldn't have done it and that was that. But, um...
They explained all this to you?
Sure.
And you were seven at this point?
Of course, of course, yeah.
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