Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999
Luck
You also said that um, it, it was your luck that, um...
Yeah.
your sister stayed...
Yeah.
because your mother wouldn't...
It was...
have never--then what, what, what exactly did your sister do that your mother couldn't have done in this case?
She was much younger and she had an uh, other life than my mother had. My mother came with fourteen years from a very poor Orthodox family, to Germany. Her sister took her over. And she was smart, but didn't have much education and very old fashioned. She always stayed in her, her uh, old-fashioned--being like from the little village.
And you think that would not have worked for the hide--for going into hiding. And when you said, let's...
She would...
let's go...
No.
did your mother say, "All right, let's go into hiding?"
No, she couldn't do that. She um, I think when I was alone with my mother, we wouldn't have met that people, because the people were in the age from my sister and my brother-in-law, they all were.
You mean uh, David?
Yes, my--David was younger, but Edith, her mother...
Uh-huh.
and uh, because I had a--my mother was in her forties when I was born, so she was at that time, already fifty-seven.
Uh-huh. And, and your sister, when you, when you said you thought the choice was either to go into hiding or to stay there and die...
Actually...
you said you, you told me your family...
Yeah.
that the choice was either to go into hiding or to die together?
Yeah.
And, and your--what did your sister say?
Nothing, nobody said...
Nobody...
they were quiet.
But they made the decision...
There were no discussions.
to go into hiding, though.
Yes.
So they...
They listened, but they didn't say...
So the twelve year-old was leading the family?
Uh, I wouldn't say so, but that there were some things I said what...
Uh-huh.
was in my mind. I wasn't leading the family, I was shaking them awake, maybe, I don't know.
Uh-huh.
That I don't know.
And then they went.
They went. I said, I think I was very spoiled in love that they want to do it for me or something. Sometimes they said something like that, but I didn't answer it when they said that, because I, I didn't know what to say. I thought--I didn't know. I was like a child, I was eleven years.
But you had no reservations, fear about saying what you said?
No. I could say everything to my family--if it was nice. If it wasn't nice, of course I got spankings or they would say something. But really punishing, they didn't know how to do that. They were very, they were all uh, very concentrated on, on, on me.
Now, when, when um, so, so there you were now in, in Velp, yes...
Yeah.
this house in Velp, which is near Arnhem.
Yeah, yes.
And...
Five kilometers...
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