Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Saul Raimi - July 7, 1982

Caught Smuggling II

You were, you were taken off the streetcar?

Streetcar and they turned around, everything. And then I came out and two of them were waiting there for me and they told me ??? I mean definite, they were definite I was a Jew. They took me, they took ever... Even my shoes they took them. My socks, my shirt. They left me just with the uh, pants on. I don't know why they didn't take the pants. I'm surprised.

Yeah.

That true. So, I went back to the--that wasn't too far from that uh, ghetto gate, from the gate. I told--I got--I told the story that I went out to the command... uh, work commander, which was at that time still uh, in uh, they took out commander from the ghetto Warsaw to work outside the ghetto for the Germans. That was somehow and uh, here I am I want to get in.

Hmm.

They beat me up good and they let me back in. Then try again and I got out and I uh, managed to get back to my hometown. And that, and that when the, uh... In '41, I think in the middle of '41, they started the deportation of the Warsaw ghetto. Then it was impossible to get in and you had to lay up and I stayed in my hometown, in the ghetto. Also my sister, my little sister ??? she had a uh, non-Jewish look, you know, uh...

Mm-hm.

...??? She, uh... We could have actually stayed and been Germany or in Poland as a non-Jews but uh, do you know the state of the ??? system in order to stay in our hometown, in the ghetto.

Uh, did your sister also smuggle...

Yeah.

...back and forth?

Right. With me.


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