Esther Posner - March 11, 1986
Underground Families
What about this other family? The ones that took care of you when you were separated from...
Oh, there were several. Do you have the tape going?
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, I didn't know.
We can take it off if you want.
No, it's okay. Oh, well, I'll, I'll just go back chronologically. The other families--there'll be several families I'll talk about now. We have not been in touch with any of them and the reason is, the Talsmas have died since then, they were too old. Uh, some of the others moved out--moved away, we just lost con...we don't know where they are. Some of them even left the country. You know, a lot of the Dutch left because they were not happy with what happened. When the Dutch government came back into power they felt that the collaborators with the Germans were not punished uh, severely enough. That, that they were not punished period. That they just, you know, were--weren't punished. They felt they should have been punished severely.
Uh, why do you suppose that was?
I think part of it was the feeling, the war was over, let's just pick up where we left off and try to make the best of, of a terrible situation for all of us. Let's pull together as Dutch ??? and do what can be done with the country as it is. And I met a lot of Dutch people who moved to uh, Canada--most of them came to Canada. And uh, they said they left in the fifties because they said they just couldn't stand what was happening in the country. Well, things were very bad in, in Europe at the time. That's why they moved.
But was it the underground that kept moving you around...
Yeah.
...from one to another?
Yeah. And it was basically the same uh, people. The same reverend and his sister and I kept seeing again and again, who uh, I adored them--both of them. I really did. They were just very nice to us, very good to us. My parents resented the fact that they came once and brought them a New Testament. They said, "Here, when you have some time, you know, read it," and my parents were furious.
What was their name?
I don't know.
But they were the ones who kept...
Right. Um, okay.
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