Saul Raimi - July 7, 1982
Smuggling in Warsaw Ghetto
And then when I came into, came to woods, I had to walk from the station to the uh, walls of the Warsaw ghetto and I knew exactly where, where those passages are but I am the Aryan side, the Polish police and the Germans going through. Hold onto the wall, get into the other way, you know where they ??? uh, uh, the Jewish police or they call it ??? was like somebody who escape, you know, he's ???
Mm-hm.
...to take the ??? He had to get because he was the one with that ???
Right.
...so he had to bike over. In the Warsaw ghetto, I stayed there--I had uh, to smuggle food, you know, for my relatives and also for uh, to make a living because I had to--we had to support our parents in the uh, in the uh, Lubartów, which was uh, uh, was ???
Mm-hm.
That was going on for about uh, '40--about a year. Close to two years.
And you, you were...
And that...
...you bribed your way into the Warsaw ghetto...
Right...
...and...
...right and if you saw that little boy climbing over, going under the--that's exactly what I was, exactly.
Mm-hm.
Then when I went down, I bribed again. Both times. But the worst part when you came up from the ghetto, the way they did was, of course, Polish ??? they call it. ??? and that's the word, Polish smugglers. And there were a lot of Po... Poles that are still coming together and doing business, smuggling business. But they knew exactly who was a Pollack and who was a Jew was going out with all that armband. And if the word got out, they could take you completely, everything what you had ???. And, of course, the Germans and the Poles, it's uh, they take you over to the gate where the uh, entrance to get in was and uh, the Germans can do whatever you want. And the Polish police, of course, helped out, there's no question about that.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn