European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

That is why we have so many priests…

When you look at them, you can see they are Jews.

It cost a lot.

If you went to a priest, you had to put money on the tray so that he could give you a birth certificate.

Because it was a risk for him, too.

If it had been noticed, that he was a person who made out this birth certificate and that somebody died

and the next birth certificate was made out, because he had to cancel the certificate of death.

He had to change everything in books to make sure there was no discovery.

All needed the time, organization and contacts... and insolence and impudence.

All advantages and disadvantages that a human being can have.

To get a birth certificate from a priest, you had to give a bribe.

Later on, to make `Kennkarte`, usually the price for it was about one thousand Zloties or more.

Then photos, then to find a photographer. It had to be organized perfectly.

Differences were big.

Here there were hungry and naked people, dead bodies were not in the streets, and there they were.

And then this horrible contrast.

Can you believe that in the ghetto you could get bananas and in Warsaw you did not have any chance to get them?

There was a restaurant, a Jewish one, in the ghetto, in 1942, where you could get everything.

Even on the Aryan side you could not find it…

And when you get to the street, only dead bodies, naked…