Alice Lang Rosen - August 5, 1991
Being Hunted by Nazis
Plus this family.
And this family, which then after awhile we didn't see the family anymore and then I heard, you know, talk that uh, they'd been found out, you know, and they were taken, they were taken away. And then what happened down by, you know, by the time went by and I settled in and everything and I felt, you know, quite at home. And all the children that went to catechism with me had uh, communion and I didn't. She wouldn't let me have it and I--of course I cried and I wanted to know why I couldn't go and the only explanation was that, um, "You'll have your communion when your parents come back, we don't want to take that away from your parents. You're just..." In other words, I never knew I was Jewish, you know, and they couldn't tell me that. They...
At that point you had forgotten.
I had completely forgotten.
Husband: Is that when the Germans came?
Yes. At that point I had, had completely forgotten. Now, someone in that city must have known what she was doing and that she had one or two Jewish children but by that time I might have been the only one, I don't know. But um, I wasn't home--I don't know if she had sent me somewhere, I don't really remember--and when I came back, when I came back, the house was in shambles. And I was told--she took me aside and she said that, "Someone was here looking for a Jewish child." Someone had told them that uh, they were harboring a Jewish child and they were looking, you know, for it. What she didn't tell me, "They were looking for you." You know, but they were looking for, for the, you know, child. And...
They being Germans--the Germans.
The Germans, yes. And she said there were like five of them, she said, with the bayonets and, and the--I mean they, they went--in France they have the um, the uh, cellars, not just the basements but the outdoor cellars and the attics--looked all around and when they didn't find anyone they left. And some time went by and again I wasn't home, when I came back again the house had been ransacked and this time the mattresses were slashed, I mean everything--much worse than the first time and again they didn't find anyone. And uh, they never ca...then they never came back after that. And, uh...
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