European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

where we used to put tables and chairs in the summer.

As I got there, a German unit with a machine gun told me to stop.

I replied: “It’s my house!”

The soldier just told me: “Halt, raus!”.

I didn’t understand any German, but “raus” meant go away, leave.

I told him: “That’s my house; I have to fix dinner for my brothers”.

Again, he replied: “Raus, schnell, schnell!” and pointed the gun at me.

I quietly went back with my bicycle and met Maria, who had the same thing happening to her.

It’s not the fear of the gun,

it’s realizing that you’re absolutely nothing to them.

These men in uniform, who looked like cockroaches,

who spoke a language you didn’t know because they weren’t even from your own country,

not only could keep you from going inside your home, but also had the power to kill you.

You were nothing to them; you were less than a bug.

It’s shocking.

Maybe we weren’t prepared for this,

but it was the reaction of a young girl who by then had already suffered from bombings,

from seeing soldiers being captured.

The older men, who had fought in the First World War, were talking about concentration camps.

My father used to tell us that we had to feed my brother otherwise these beasts would let him die of hunger.