Miriam Troostwyk - May 28, 1998 and June 3, 1999
Neighbors
Rettinger right?
Hans Rettinger and he was maybe two or three years older than me. And I was so scared, because it was not people that really talked a lot before the war, with my uh, parents. And my parents were real um, they were not conservatives, they were more, more to the Orthodox.
Oh, they were?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And uh, well and they didn't see each other.
But he didn't see you there.
They said, hello and this was it.
But on that day, he didn't see you?
After the war--uh, before uh, when the war started, they didn't say hello anymore to us. And we came from uh, Warminhuizin evacuation at last we came back in the street, there was a flag from the ceiling ...til here, a big red flag with the swastika and it uh, it was round white and the black swastika. I had never seen it before.
It was still there when you got--it was after the war?
No. That was in uh, 1940, when we came back from Warminhuizin.
Oh, when you came back from--in Warminhuizin.
And we turned in our street and there was the flag.
Hm.
I will never forget it. And then--I don't know, we didn't--they didn't talk to us. Maybe they were frightened, maybe--I don't know. But he was--their only son was in the Hitler Jugend uh, so it was dangerous when I saw him. But he didn't see us.
Did you see them after--did you ever see him after the war?
No--oh, no, wait. We lived in their house after the war.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And the flag was gone?
Everything was gone. They had the typewriter uh, shop with typewriters.
When you started to tell me about the--oh, they sold typewriters?
Yeah.
Or repaired typewriters?
Yeah.
And they were Nazis?
Oh, yeah.
NSB'rs right?
They were Nazis, they were German. They came from German.
Volksdeutschers?
Yeah.
From Leipzig?
No, not from Leipzig uh, I don't know from where. And I can't remember their faces very well, only from the boy a little bit, not much.
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