Nathan Weiselman - January 1, 1985
DP Camp
This was from uh, actually, going back, after, after the, the camps that were finished, I came back to my hometown in Poland, Radom, when I stayed over there one year and after I joined the, with the Haganah and to go to, the aim was to actually to go to Israel. So we went uh, illegal from the Poland border, from the, from Poland we went to Austria and from Austria we went to Italy. But the ???, they didn't, they appear so that we go, and it was so slow, because we got smuggle in, in the border, we didn't have any passport. So, it happens especially when we went from Austria to Italy. We, they sent us back there about three times, the, the Italian carb...carab...carabiniers. This is the police. Called carabiniers. Um, the neutral zone. It really was, the, the, it was planned to send us back with the understanding from with the Bricha. They, they call them, they call themselves Bricha, Haganah they work together.
Mm-hm.
For whatever reason, the plan was to send us back when we were...
Send you back to?
To neutral zone.
All right.
It was not really, it was neutral.
Mm-hm. In Italy?
Yeah. Yeah, in Italy and in Austria. For one, for the reason, they sent us back in other groups, didn't make through, was calculated with, from the Haganah and the Bricha, and I assume that the carabiniers for one reason. When we, they ask, and we were in some hidden places, and there used to be bunkers in the war time. I hid in the mountains and they ask who is the brave guys, strong, have courage, to go the first. So, of course younger people, I was not at that time married, I said I would like to be the first. I said I would like to be the first. All, all the young people said the first. And of course the older the people said I will like rather the younger people to go first. So we did go, and we, in the middle of the night, and then it was start to be daytime. We were in mountain hidden away, nobody didn't, nobody saw us. But when I went down the mountain, I saw carabiniers, Italian carabiniers coming. It was planned something from the Jewish organization, from the Haganah ??? And they said, probably these guys from Haganah came the first and they said, "You guys, you're going to get good food now." And so they gave us the food and, and then they did take a, a minute or two, the carabiniers came out and sat, and we, and they sat on the desk and they said, "Okay, finish the food." And then they took us back. So, to, to the neutral zone. It was happen was several times, about two or three times. The reason I ...
Was this arresting you?
No, they didn't arrest us. They took us, they, they, they took us out and sent us back that we wouldn't be on the Italian territory...
I see.
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