European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

Everything was padded with hay and covers so nobody would hear us.

We weren’t allowed to cough or to go out to the loo.

We could always hear people walk around outside, but we didn’t know whether they were Gestapo or partisans.

It was very exiting but very dangerous.

Mass imprisonment, deportation

I was not at home.

I was at the neighbour’s.

When the neighbour saw that the Gestapo went to our house,

she hid us in an outhouse and warned us:

“Please, don’t look out of the window and stay quiet.”

But us children, we didn’t understand that and didn’t keep quiet.

We kept looking out to see what was going on

until we saw that they were marching our family and relatives off.

We were frightened then.

Only then did we realize that there was danger.

They came to the neighbour’s house

after that and there was an argument in the yard.

We were frightened that they would take the neighbour, as well, and deport her.

After an hour it went quiet.

Then the neighbour came and said we could come out now.