Document

http://collections.ushmm.org

Contact reference@ushmm.org for further information about this collection and you know, like children are we played together. We played ball, we went to the dunes, we went swimming and then he was in my class for several years and then he was transferred to another school. He wasn't entirely a good student and couldn't stay in our school. But I stayed very friendly with him. Actually "til he was arrested also in a raid. Again a reprisal raid in July deg42, just before the deportation started. Also a German soldier had been killed and they emptied that whole street of all the Jews. One very long street, very nice residential street, went in every home where there were Jews and arrested them.

Q: Do you know what year Rudi was born?

A: Yes. His birthday was June 4, and he was born in 1922.

Q: Did he have any other interests, did he have musical interests?

A: No. He also played tennis and he played the violin, he had violin lessons. He liked popular music, records.

Q: Do you remember any in particular, or anything like that?

A: Well, we listened a lot to French songs, like Charles Trunet (?) You probably don't even know that name. He was very popular then, and also Austrian songs like Marta Keller, I think that was her name. No, that was not her name. We listened to American songs. Frank Sinatra was big. We played a lot of classical records. We had an old fashioned player. For his Bar Mitzvah he got a record player, you know, that you turned a handle to play, and we played a lot of classical music. What else? I don't know. We did what young people do. We went on trips, bike trips and stuff like that. He was caught in one of those raids and that was the end of him.

The day after he was arrested, he was sent on o Auschwitz or wherever. I never heard from him. With his parents and his brother. I even went in a day or two after because I worked for the Jewish Council in that department that was called Aids to Departing People and I was able to send some stuff to Westerbork because most people stayed. But later on I heard they weren't even there. And, of course, he never came back. And I didn't know that at the time during all those years, all of the sudden he might be back. He was young and everything, of course we realized that he probably didn't live three days afterwards.

Q: What month was that?

A: It was June 1942 and it was just after his birthday. It was a Sunday. And I am trying to look back, his birthday was on June 4, 1942 and whatever the Sunday was after that; I think it was June 9", it was that date. He had just turned 20. He had a younger brother who was very, very bright and very, very musical, was about three or four years younger than him. Of course, he went, his parents, everybody. And then, after that I had some sort of a boyfriend, his name was Hans Rudelshim, and he was born in Kampen, which was near ; I don't know when his birthday was. He was very interesting. He went into hiding a lot. His father was a tailor, and he was a good tailor too. AS a matter of fact he remodeled some sports clothes of my father for my sister and me into skirts and little top and he was also a very gifted pianist and he took some piano lessons from a blind Hungarian pianist who lived in Holland.

Was also caught in Holland and who used to practice when he couldn't play concerts anymore.

He used to give house concerts of the piano and he practiced at my parents" house. We had a grand piano. And he got to know this friend of mine and he taught and gave him lessons

Q: Do you know what year Hans was born?

A: I think probably also in 1922, it may have been "21. He may have been a year older, and he had to leave Kampen , like all the people from the Provinces were sent. He looked very Jewish. He dyed his hair blond and went into hiding and did all kinds of reckless things, traveled and went everywhere. And, of course, they were betrayed.

Q: Do you know when that was?

A: I don't know exactly when that was. We were still in our house and we left there in May deg43, so it must have been February or March "43. I don't know what happened to him. Never heard a word. He was sent away. And then this other picture here is of a young man named Gideon, we called him in Dutch, it's called "Chideon", and we called him "Chi." He was from a very prominent Dutch gentile family. They were originally Huguenots, therefore the French name.

We were very good friends. We were in the same grade. He was a very good friend of my boyfriend, Rudi . In the very beginning I hear of the Dutch National Socialist Movement in the early "30's, a lot of people became members of this Nazi group. Even Jews, because they thought, you know, it was a good system and very orderly and everything. Before we knew all the stuff that was going to happen, but his family eventually, of course, totally abandoned this and they were very, very good and had many Jewish friends. He went into the Resistance and hid Jews. His father was sent away and died in, I think it was Buchenwald or Dachau, one of the two. His mother was in Ravensbruck, survived, came back a wreck and lived for quite a few years as a wreck, and never really got over all of this.

Q: Can you tell us anything about either Gideon or Hans, or both, and Rudi, what were they like?

What was their personalities like?

A: Well, you know when you grow up together as children you don't delve that much in the personalities or whatever. He was just also not the greatest of students, but a very sweet guy and fun. We had a lot of fun together. We were young, we had parties. We organized our own parties. We decided whether we would go formal to this party or should we go another way.

Everybody brought their best records and we played and we danced. We had very happy teenage years. It was mostly for fun. Although I do remember though once we were in high school that we had very deep conversation subject about the incarnation or vivisection, you know, experiments on animals. Who was for and who was against. You know, like teenagers who go to a decent school do. But it was mostly just friends together all the time. I spent really all my years in high school with my friends rather than with my family. We did our homework, but it had to be done quick because then we would get together and play records and talk and have fun. Of course girls were involved. He had a girlfriend too.

Q: Hans, how did he fit in with the circle?

A: No, Hans really didn't move to Amsterdam until the war was already on, and his uncle was a physician in Amsterdam and they were the best friends of Rudi's parents. So I knew him really through Rudi. And then Rudi was deported, you know, he went after me, because he liked me from the beginning. So somehow that's how all these people fit in. I mean these are just three of them. I showed you a little tennis picture, there were several more we were always together with. These were really after school friends.

Q: What was Rudi like?

A: Rudi was a very nice down to earth, rather simple kind of guy, I think. You don't know. I sometimes wonder what would he have been or become. He was as I said he didn't have very good head for learning, but his father was a stockbroker and I think he could have become that too. He was interested in business and everything. But there wasn't much time for development yet. You know, we were both 16 when the war broke out in Europe and 17 when Holland was invaded. We were kids. I mean even today 16 and 17 years old, and they are much more sophisticated than we were, but even they are little kids, while they know more of what goes on in the world, you know, with television. We didn't have television, of course. We didn't have a radio in the house until I was 14. If 1 wanted to hear children's programs on the radio, I walked 25 minutes to my grandmother's every Tuesday afternoon to hear children's programs. We were not really spoiled kids. It wasn't that much.

Q: Is there anything else? I know I've picked your brain and put you through the wringer. Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: There's probably a million things I can add, you have to stop somewhere.

Q: Thank you very, very much.

A: You're very welcome.