Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999
Preparing for Deportation
In case you had to run?
To go to Westerbork or to...
Uh-huh.
Vught. And there were little um, uh, your name in it. And my--there were no secrets for me when I was a child, when they were telling things. And they always said, "When you are going to uh, camp--a concentration camp and you will be separated from us, that could be possible, then here's your winter coat. And in your winter coat we have--we--we're sewing some money. If you want to have food or something to eat, maybe you can do it with the money. Then, in your shoes, we have little diamonds made in the soles. Then um, there is a, a brush to brush yourself." Who brushes his self to clothes when you are going to a camp?
Yeah.
But they took the part off and put there gold rings or uh, brilliants or something in and I had such a thing in my thing. And she said--and my mother and my sister always said, "Look very well after it, because this can save your life." And I remember that my father--and when my brother-in-law, he had um, a shaving, uh...
Brush?
brush.
Yeah.
And in the handle they put all that stuff into. And the backpacks were ready. And--but we got--before the war already, before 1940, sometimes a letter from the ghetto from Russia. And there were sisters from my mother, with their daughters and little babies from Germany, caught in a Razzia and they came in that ghetto. And they were writing--a letter took sometimes six weeks or two months and they came from uh, with the Red Cross.
Hm.
And then they were writing, "Tante Riveh is where Frattle is." Now, Frattle was another sister. She was already for years dead. So they were writing...
I see.
in code...
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn