Esther Posner - March 11, 1986
Life Under German Occupation II
Uh, there was one afternoon where a girlfriend and I decided we were not going to go to kindergarten. We just decided we were going to walk around the neighborhood. And when we did that--instead of going to school we just decided, you know, we're going to skip school and we were walking around and there were these--we met soldiers just on the street who stopped us and talked to us. And we weren't wearing a yellow star yet at that time because we were too young, we were under six but we were very frightened because we knew we were Jewish and we knew we shouldn't have done what we were doing and we, we were in danger just being Jews, being out on the street, not having any business being out on the street. And we knew that if our parents knew about it they'd be very frightened and would be very mad about it.
Did you talk to any of the soldiers?
They'd stop and talk to us. Uh, you know, we ran, we were scared. They, they knew we were scared. There was, there was a soldier who lived in the street behind us who was on crutches--I don't know if he was uh, an NSB or if he was a German--and uh, he was just a mean guy. He was on crutches and he would always try to trip people on the street. And I saw him a lot 'cause he just lived around a corner and if I would go visit a friend, you know, I'd see him walking around and he was just a mean man. And uh, it was just a very frightening childhood at that point--from that point on. Although I think my parents did a lot to, you know, try to keep me from being very frightened. Uh, whatever the situation was, you know, they would always tell me that we would be safe and everything would be all right, and that kind of thing.
And you were an only child.
I was an only child, yeah.
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