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A: My grandfather decide he should break it because otherwise I'll have one leg, God forbid, shorter than the other and that's very important at that time. Because if they don't do it immediately, it's very dangerous, so we did it.

Q: Talk a little bit about maybe some of the holidays or did you, did you yourself ever read the Torah in the home with your family?

A: No, we had a Hebrew teacher, we got a Jewish education, my brother and me, Bar Mitzvah, and , every day my brother.

Q: .

A: , you know, the , that a man could . So my father put on every day, but we didn't live in a Jewish neighborhood, we lived far away from the Jewish neighborhood and even then, we kept the Shabbat(ph). It's, the whole family, more or less, kept the Shabbat and were religious to a certain point, not that they had their head covered or what, but you can say orthodox.

They were orthodox, you can say that.

Q: What was your favorite holiday?

A: The Hanukkah and we got gifts, that's when we got gifts and that was a very good holiday, | liked it.

Q: .

A: At that time, they didn't give gifts, they gave some change, some money, some candies. Some candies, some money, not much, but we weren't so demanding like they youth of today, so whatever we got, we were happy. Everyone in the family gave the children from the other one, gifts, that mean Hanukkah money, they called it. And that's what it was.

Q: Do you remember with your other friends, being aware of being Jewish, when you were real little, before any of the war started? Or did it just, was it more that you were just another kid?

A: No, no. No, no. | had a lot of friends who were Jewish, | had that friend who | told you that saved my life, that was not Jewish, but she learned Jewish and during the war she used to go to my grandfather and do a lot for Jews. And when she came to Israel, she didn't want anything, , they wanted to give her honor and so on, she didn't want, she said, "I did it for love. | didn't do it for, by interest". That's what she says to now. We wanted her to come to Israel, to America because she's a painter, she F

Q: "

A: That's all, she doesn't want to come here. She loves us, that's it, she loves me.

Q: Was it difficult for you mother to keep that, the house kosher? You weren't living in a Jewish neighborhood, where would she get the meat and, butchered?

A: No, she used to go to the Jewish butcher and come back and, she took a cab, by bus or tramway, we didn't have a car | remember. Not everyone had a car at that time. But, she didn't mind, she didn't mind. She even made our own

, |remember. When it went near the deportation and people were a little afraid to go out, she would make our own from scratch. But she didn't mind.

Q: Think back, when do you remember first starting to think, things are not normal any more. You said when it got closer to deportation, what were the first signs that you remember or things observing in your parents that things were not good?

A: | had a friend who stood in line for getting some bread with them and then the German took her away and made . And before the deportation, they took away...

Q: That story went too fast, what happened?

A: A friend of mine stood in line to get some bread at the time. And the German took her away, that worked on me, or it hit me very strongly because it was a very close school friend.

Q: .

A: No, no. No, no.

Q: How did you hear about it?

A: Her sister told me that she went along for the bread, they took her away and they never heard about her. She was then 11. She stood in line to get the bread for the family. And then two days later, my two cousins, one 17, one 20, were taken away on a train and they, in the middle of the highway, when the train went, not a highway, when the train went, one jumped out. And they found out and they shoot after him and they killed him on the spot. He was 17, my first cousin. And his brother jumped, they never found him, they don't know, until now, where, what, when, happened to him. Never came back anyway. So, must have been killed or what, we never knew. But this one, they shoot after him and they saw him jumping from the train. He was 17, at that time 17 was young. Nowaday, the people, but then 17 was young, it was another generation, if you want.

Q: How old were you when you first started to notice that things were different?

Was it when the Germans invaded or was it a little before did you start noticing?

A: | started before because my mother used to tell us that it was very hard times in Poland and so on and about the family of hers in Poland, so | started to understand.

But til it happened, we didn't know.

Q: What, how old were you when the Germans invaded?

A: Oh, 10.

Q: Do you remember that ;

A: Yeah, sure. We went, all the Jews, most of the Jews in Antwerp, went, their packages and they went walking and riding to the French from there. But we didn't make it and we wanted to go over to France, we thought would save us. And after a few days, they said that the German are not so bad and all the Jews went back to Belgium.

Q: Your family actually :

A: My family packed, my family, my uncles, my aunts, we all packed up and went to the French border.

Q: Do you remember those discussions among your parents about what to do?

A: No, they said that it seems the German are not so bad, so why shouldn't we go back and be in our house? Because we just took a few things and left, that's all.

Q: It was hard to believe that it was that dangerous?

A: Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

Q: And yet, people were frightened enough to pack up initially?

A: Yeah, yeah.

Q: So, what was it like when you got back? How were things different?

A: When we got back it was okay, | remember the child, there was a man that the wife worked for my father in the furs, and he was jealous that a lot of Jews went away to France, Spain, to save themselves, not to stay. And most of my family left, only not my uncle. One uncle. My father didn't want to leave my grandfather, so we didn't go away. But that man would, create, what's the English, squeeze...

Q: Squeal?

A: Squeal, he would squeal on Jews and at the end he finished in a camp anyway, but he squeals a lot on Jews. Not on my father, my family, because his wife used to work for us. So, he came to my father, he say, "| won't squeal on you".

Q: What did your neighborhood look like? Did it look different? Did, how was it different?

A: The neighborhood was not Jewish, there was only a man on the fourth floor, it was four floor , and he was American and he told my parents to go away from the house. That was after two months, | left the house to be hidden. And that woman had two daughters who were, excuse me, whores.

And she came down and she said to my father, "Look, | owe you. I'm 1 it's nothing or nothing, | don't have the money to pay you and | squealed. And I'm sorry | squealed, so | want you to go away because Jews there, at 8:00 they're going to come to take you". So my father say, "You, my friend, my wife just made you a cake, | don't believe it. | don't believe it". And, believe it or not, 8:00 Tuesday they came and my brother, who didn't want to leave the house, that the neighbor wanted to take him in and put him under the bed, and he didn't want, so he closed himself in the toilet, and they broke the toilet, they took him along. But she was sorry, so after the war she met me and she was sorry that she squealed, it was too late. And she was sorry, she came and told them.

Q: What was her name?

A: Cray(ph). Mrs. Cray.

Q: She was German?

A: No, no. She was Belgium.

Q: Let's go back a little bit. Why, what was going on that made your parents concerned enough to send you away? What were you hearing?

A: | was a very nervous child at the time. And my brother didn't want to leave and as my friend said, "| have an aunt who lives out of town and she will take care and why don't you let her there?" So they decided, and I'll never forget, | went by train, my father took me by the, to the train, and in Belgium, in Antwerp, if a German walked in the street and you were Jew, you should walk in the middle of the street, not on the sidewalk where the German. My father must have been excited that he leaves me, who knows if he'll see me again, he didn't know, it would be so bad, we walked on the street, a German came, stopped and gave him two beatings on the face. And | had a very big respect for my father and | started to cry and shout because who would slap my father? | never saw it, | never heard of it .

That's it. He had a store first, but he went with me to the station to take the train | should go to the people who were hidden, hiding me.

Q: "

A: Nothing, you wouldn't dare to say something because my best friend that | tell you, her mother had a store and one day | met, there were German coming into her and what kind of friendship she had with him. And he liked me because he had a child the same age as mine and he liked me very much, he wanted only to give me a kiss or a hug and | didn't want. So, one day | wore my David Star and | went in the street with my mother and | walked across the street, | saw the German. He didn't know I'm Jewish. So | run in the first store, my mother didn't understand the reason. So the second day he came to my friend's mother and he said, "I could have given any amount of money that | saw that little Anny, but it was a Jewish girl, it's not Anny, but she just look like her". He saw me but he, he couldn't believe it was me because I'm not Jewish, he didn't understand. | didn't know what he would have done if he would know, but he was sure it was me. And it was me. But | disappeared, | was very fast, | disappeared when | saw his face. All that | had in mind is go, go. That's what | did.

Q: So you're describing already some new rules. You had to wear a star.

A: Yeah.

Q: Of David. If you saw a German coming, you had to get out of the street.

A: Yeah.

Q: What were some of the other rules?

A: The rules that children couldn't go in the regular school. Children couldn't go in the library. Couldn't go to any doctor they wanted, only to certain doctors. There was a lot of things you couldn't do, a lot of things.

Q: And how did your parents explain it to you?

A: They sat down and they told us that because we Jewish, they look, not Jews like we, Jews that are the third generation they check. And they explained to us and that's it. And | always said | could write a book, lot of stories because | went through, during the hiding, a lot that | didn't even say my tape. And that's it. And now | don't get a penny from the Germans, | don't get a penny.

Q: explore that, not right now, but when we do the whole

. So how soon after the Germans, do you remember hearing that the Germans had invaded? Do you remember that moment?

A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Q: What was that like?

A: That was the 10 of May, 1940, they invaded Belgium. And as | told you before, the Belgian Jews didn't know how bad it is, we ran away. And then when we came back, they said that the Jews from Belgium, born in Belgium, would not be taken away, the Queen announced. And my aunt was born in Belgium and she didn't hide or nothing. But my uncle was sitting there and he lived three days, everything closed, they took them away and he was left because he was hiding. Had a child one and a half and six years old. Then after three days when he came down, they were gone. And he was closed in the apartment, in the house, it was a house.

Q: But, so, the scenario is this, that the Germans invaded, many, many Jews left.

After a few days they came back and they found these new rules. How long did you live like that before your parents decided it was not safe?

A: Two years. Two years. It started and started and people would go away and go away, and my parents wouldn't leave my grandfather and that's the reason we stayed and that's the reason they were taken away. And my grandfather was taken away and then he was 78. My grandmother was taken to a hospital where she lived during the war. But my father was a very good son, as you can understand.

From all the five sons, he was the only one who didn't want to leave. That's it.

Q: Did that cause arguments between your mother and your father? Did your mother want to leave?

A: | don't think so because she let him decide and she did what he wanted. That's it.

Q: Did you ever talk about it with your older brother, you and your brother might be sitting together?

A: Maybe not much, he took me much younger than | was and felt he's older, he shouldn't tell me, he shouldn't talk about it. But, that's all what | remember, maybe yes, but | don't spoke a lot. We didn't talk.

Q: Did your father ever try to explain it to you?

A: No, he explained to me that I'll be a short while by these people, then they'll come and pick me up to be home.

Q: So, let's talk about this. Was there any one thing that made your parents decide that you should go into hiding?

A: Yes, they said that a lot of my friends were taken away. My best friend, she was a little older, she said, "Oh, | am so happy to go away, I'll be able to put blue on my eyes and lipstick". And she didn't know where and what she's going. And my parents said we want you to be somewhere we know where you are. We don't want you to go with her or what. Because | wanted to go with that friend because we were very close, a Jewish girl. She never came back. She never came back.

Q: So a lot of families were beginning to send their children away?

A: Yeah, yeah.

Q: But there wasn't, | mean, one thing? One day this happened and the next day you went into hiding?

A: No, no. No, no.

Q: Tell us about your friend, Raphael, who became, you assumed her identity.

A: Yes.

Q: Just tell us, imagine that we don't know anything about it.

A: She was very good, she was an only daughter, she liked me and when | was hiding, she went to my aunt, that | told you was Belgian, she went to bring her food.

She went to my grandfather, she went to my parents while they were staying in Belgium, and she was extremely good. She would put on a Star of David and go in the Jewish neighborhood, she had black hair so she looked Jewish, so everybody took her for a Jew, but she could have been arrested and taken away because she wore the David Star and the David Star here. So, but she said in her mind, "| want to help". She really was helping and doing most she could. Raphael : There's a little French there. And that's it. So my uncle, when he was taken away, lived with nuns in a convent where there was 50, 40 nuns, nobody knew he is a man, nobody knew he is Jewish, only the Mother Superior, the Superior Mother.

The Mother in charge from the whole nuns there. She knew that he's a man and he's Jewish. But the nuns didn't know and as he had black hair and a beard, he shaved four to five times a day, he wore the clothes as a nun.

Q: He was a nun, he pretended to be a woman.

A: Yeah, as a woman and a nun. So four or five times a day he would shave and eat only kosher.

Q: What was his name?

A: Israel Livingston.

Q: How did he get into the monastery?

A: The woman who used to work for him, the maid, the housekeeper, she knew that monastery, she talked to them and when he was closed in the house, she went through the roof and went into the house and put him on clothes from her husband who died. Gave him the identity card of her husband that didn't look at all like him.

And she took him by train to the monastery in Brussels. So she put her life at stake, too. And they went to Brussels and the Mother Superior knew about him and that's it. And he stayed there a year. A full year in the monastery. Dressed and lived like a nun, five times a day he shaved.

Q: And he did this after the Nazis had searched the home and taken his wife and children away? So he knew he was in danger?

A: No, he didn't know that same night, that Friday night, they were religious people, they didn't know they coming for him. They thought they coming for them, not for him, they coming for him, not for them. So they said all the time, stay where you are, like hysteric. He was upstairs on the third floor. They were downstairs. When they opened the door, they thought somebody squealed on him and they looking for him. Like they looked for me a few times when | was hidden. But it was not true. They looked for them and not for him, they didn't know he is in the building.

So they took away all the family. And when they saw good furniture or good things, they would close from outside to inside the house, nobody should go in. So they seal the house til they take out a family. So they sealed it and he was inside.

Q: Let's go back to, do you remember your mother talking to you before, the day before you went away or the night? What did she say?

A: She would say, "Look, we have to send you away. It's for your own good, we hope to be together soon". So we thought so. And after the war, we prepared 12 bedrooms, full bedrooms, and nobody came back. Twenty-eight from the family were taken. Close, you know, father's family, close, aunts and uncles and cousins.

Very close, 28, were taken away.

Q: What did you take with you when you went into hiding?

A: Maybe three dresses, two dresses, because | used to go to church every Sunday, they made me go. Because the people in the neighborhood, they I'm a niece from out of town. And that dress | would wear Sunday, then nothing, a skirt and a top, maybe. Nothing special. My socks were all hard from mending, not like now, they mended the socks. | would need the socks, wear them. And they got money for me every month. And once my parents were taken, they were worried. The money will stop. | don't think they would give me up or what, they wanted to adopt me after the war because they had a sick girl, retarded, they wanted to adopt me and my uncle didn't want me to become Catholic. And they had respect for me, there was never pork in the house while | lived there. But, they were very strict to me, very strict. If | break an egg, | wouldn't get an egg for three days. And the food was not too much. When | had once an accident, they wouldn't call a doctor because they were afraid. So, it was not easy when you're very spoiled from home, because | was very spoiled as an only daughter. And that's it.

Q: Did you take anything from home like a doll or photographs?

A: No, only the diary, only the diary, no jewelry. Only the diary, and now I'm more in touch than all these years was a cousin of mine that went last week to the Holocaust Museum and | got a ticket and she...

[end of side A of tape one of three]

Q: You were talking about your cousin.

A: And now we got in touch very much and we're very close again. We were very close as children. And she started to call here and | came now and | said, "I want to give you that page from the diary, if | find my diary". Then | started to looking.

One day I'll give it to you, make you a copy. But she painted me a sheep and she say, "Our love is forever". It was the last thing | saw her for many, many years, maybe 30, 40 years | didn't see, didn't hear. Now she lives in Houston, Texas. But in the war, no, she was in Ecuador, she wasn't in Belgium. She didn't go through anything. And when we met a week ago or two, she didn't believe that | don't get money from the Nazi war because we went through so much, we said, "Ours was our daughters". And | told them, | don't know if | said it in my tape, | don't think, how they look to me and so on during the war, they were sitting and crying. But | went through losing my husband that | can't cry. It's not good, it's healthier when you cry. But | cried a lot after the war and then later | can't. It's inside, you see, some people cry fast, but | can't. | just can't cry so fast.

Q: Who gave you the diary? It was your already?

A: | kept it all the time in the war. And then when | moved from Israel here to get married, | got married.

Q: No, but | mean, how, when did you start it?

A: | started in Belgium, my parents gave it to me, like diary with a little mirror. And | started to write, to give it to my friends, and they all signed, most are not there. You know, children. And then, at the end, in the diary, if you see, it's written about my parents, my cousin who was taken away and how | feel and how |, and it was very sensitive. But then when | made the tea, | say, "If you want | give you that copy".

So they say, "No, | want the original". So | gave the original.

Q: Describe arriving at your new home, where was it and how, what kind of room

did you have when you were in hiding? When you were sent away to a family of

your best friend?

A: It was a bad feeling. It was a feeling like lost because | always had my parents

near me and | was spoiled and loved and cherished. But they tried to be very nice,

the man was very, very intelligent and he wanted me only to study, study, gave me

private lesson in German. And then he put me by the nuns to study, studied

English and French literature. He wanted me only to study. And by the way, last

week | wrote a letter to Ellie(ph) Vazel(ph) about somebody and | wrote about me

and he wanted me only to study and know more because he knew a lot. And they

had a retarded child, as | told you and the marriage was not very successful. And |

was very naive because when the army came, the English army, we had an

Englishman living there, started a little, started with his wife, but | didn't know

because they brought me up, | was at the age 15, 16, like a little girl of seven, eight.

He wanted me only to study, only to study. And | must be thankful to him, the

languages, what | know now, is all thanks to him because he insisted | should

study.

Q: What were their names?

A: Collette and Henri, French names. And the family name was very French,

Gramoulet(ph). Big, , like in Holland and Belgium, .

Q:

A: Yeah, Gramoulet, big windmill, translate word by word, but that's a name, a

family name.

Q: So did you speak French with them?

A: Yeah, only French.

Q: What did the house look like?

A: Oh, they had a beautiful home. Beautiful garden. But a lot of shooting during

the war because it was near a train station and they said to the neighbors that | was

a little sick and | cannot stay in a big city, so they, it was around 50 miles from

Brussels. They, | cannot stay in the city with my parents, | have to have fresh air of

the suburbs, that's the reason they took me. And they want me to stay with them.

But | had a lot of, lot of accidents. That being the first and the worst accident was

that | went to a man who gave me an identity card. You need cards for food and

identity. And | saw that big truck with people from the German and | couldn't hide

and | couldn't run away. But inside the truck was a boy who knew me from

Belgium, from Antwerp. And his parents wanted him to stay, they didn't know him and they didn't want, so he said to somebody in the wagon that | am Jewish, not Catholic. So they looked at me, but | had disappeared. | wasn't there, so the German looked for me after that in every house they came, there was maybe in the street, five like houses, villas they called it. And they looked but they couldn't find me because it took five minutes to stretch between the tennis, you and | play tennis, there is the, you know, what's in between us, the net, that's between us, goes like that, so when you turn it that was like steps and | took it up on the attic, | took it up.

Q: Wait. You crawled up a net?

A: No, the net, we used to take the net and put it here and that is the attic, | would go up.

Q: You would make sort of a stairs.

A: Yeah. | would go up the kind of stairs, take up the net, close the door and that was the attic, you could not put a ladder, you could not put a chair and go up, you couldn't reach, only with that net.

Q: You sort of climbed up a rope net?

A: You did it. And closed the door. | was small, but stayed there three hours.

When | came back, | was half fainted because it was a chimney, like a chimney, you know, for the coal and so | was half fainted when they took me out from there.

They looked three-quarter of an hour in the house.

Q: And what did that sound like when they were looking for you?

A: At the same moment it was like, just I'm going to faint, that | felt like I'm going any minute to faint because it was hot from the coal and it was hot from that going up in a rush. It's not that you take it easy, you go slowly, | had to make it in two minutes, go up, take the net, close the door from inside, it was all, and don't forget, | was very childish. It's not that you're grown up and you know what you do, why, what, when. But at the same moment you do it because you feel you want to live.

You want to stay alive. And the second day...

Q: Let's stay with this just for a second, though. So are you standing up...

A: No, laying, laying.

Q: Laying down. And what can you hear?

A: | can hear not good because the door is closed, but | can hear a little. A little.

Like screaming saying, "To hell with it, where is she? Isn't she here?" "No". But | have a feeling she's here. "Is she here?" "No". And it would go on and go on for half an hour. And you would stand just here and | am just on top of you. So any minute | thought you'll find out, but you had no way. If you're smaller, you had no way to come up, because it was too narrow and too small and you couldn't come up. And then the second day from that, they didn't give up on me. They say they know that they have a Jewess at . So it went so fast.

Q: So the Germans said that they were sure...

A: Sure there was some hiding a Jew. So they came unexpected, | didn't have the time to go up, so they put me in the garden and then like buried me.

They put earth on me and | was there. The same time, the next day.

Q: Oh, the next day. Who took you in the garden?

A: My aunt, my aunt. They digged a hole, they put me in, they covered the hole and they were looking in the garden, but there was no sign, there was nothing, you understand? Because there was no sign that there was somebody, there was plants and there was potatoes or something.

Q: Did you resist being buried?

A: | don't know, | remember that | was sick for two days after that, | was staying in bed and | was crying all the time. Because | didn't know why they did it to me. She say, "It's for your own good". She was very, very nice, very stingy, | remember, but very nice. Very warm person, but stingy, very stingy. That was all in one week.

The attic, , and the third day, it was not finished. | was supposed to go to the man who gave me the identity card. And it was not like from here to the corner, it was not far and he had to change something on my identity card, it was in Raphael's name. So he, he saw | am young and he take advantage, he say, "I insist, you should tell me that's your real name". It's not my real name. | say, "It's my real name". | wasn't so stupid. And he insisted, | wouldn't tell. So then he say, you know, "Leave me your identity card here. Next Monday, I'll give it to you". And | had a feeling, sixth sense, not to give him, | say, "I'll give it to you Sunday". | came home and | cried, | say, "He wanted that card". She says, "You didn't give it to him?" | say, "No, | had a feeling not to". She say, "My child, do whatever you feel". The next morning she came to me and she hugged me, she say, "You know, they killed him". He was on his way somewhere and he had identity cards, 25 or 30, and all these people were taken away. You didn't know if he worked for the Germans and for the American, for both.

Q: double?

A: Double. So they never knew who killed him. But the people were all taken away. She was very, very happy that | didn't give him the card because there was the address and the name and the age, everything on the identity card. So she was very happy.

Q: | want to go back to, | mean, how little were you? How quickly could you dig a hole for you?

A: | didn't dig it. They digged it maybe two or three days in advance in case they needed it. They prepared. | didn't dig it. Not | knew, not | would. No, | didn't dig that hole.

Q: Did you close your eyes? Did they put a blanket over you?

A: Nothing, nothing. Just plain, yeah. Just alive.

Q: And how long were you underground?

A: Maybe half an hour she told me. But it was like a year. But it was only a half a year, a half an hour, that's all. No, and | could never have a doctor like one time | made soap and | burned all my hands, here | have signs and they would not call a doctor. All that boiling water and soap, we didn't have soap, so we made soap ourselves, they couldn't call the doctor because they were afraid. The only thing is, | went Sunday to church and that's all. For now. She used to say, "You pray for your God. | know you don't pray, but you pray for your God". | say, "Not supposed to pray for your God in a church". | said, "You have to go to a synagogue, you cannot pray in a church". She say, "You can".

Q: Do you think that's true?

A: | don't think you can pray in a church for a synagogue, | don't think so.

Q: Who, when you say like after you were buried alive, that you cried for two days, who comforted you? Or did anyone touch you or :

A: They comforted me, but not like a mother. Not like a mother. | don't know how you feel with your mother, but it was missing because it was not the comfort of a mother. But they tried to calm me down, make me calm. But, it was not too strong, the comfort. Maybe at that time, at that moment, going through what | went through, | was a little hard and | overcome this. You understand? But, you know.

That's what | did.

Q: When you were in the hole, with the dirt on top of you, could you hear the Germans looking for you?

A: No, but | felt like, go, a certain moment, it was like they go on top of me, but otherwise, | don't know where they are. But when they walk near me, it felt like you walk on my head. But that's all, but | didn't react. Maybe | was too weak or maybe | was mixed up or maybe | was anxious and nervous from what's happening. They would say in advance, | would say, "I don't accept, | won't do it". And then | did it because they wanted me to do it.

Q: They had warned you that that might happen, and you said, "| don't want to be buried?"

A: No, they say, we might have to do that. | say, "| would prefer to go up in the attic". She said to wait and see what situation will be. Then the situation didn't come to go to the attic and they had no other way than to do that. Because if they don't save me, they would be taken away to one because all the of the family, we gave somebody, and the son squealed on the father, they took away his father and all the silver of the family. So | told her to , | read it in the paper what, so she said, "You see, God forbid if they take you, they take us away, too because we wanted to save you. So we also in danger as much as you are".

She explained to me, she says, "So, you have to do what we tell you to do because we just in danger like you are". So | decided to do what she tells me.

Q: What did you call her?

A: Aunt.

Q: What was a regular day like? Did you think every day, maybe the Germans will come looking for me? Maybe just describe a regular day.

A: | got up in the morning and | was, | was in a very bad mood because | didn't know what the day is going to bring and they had a, like a maid who would take care of the daughter and they would let me help her. And they would teach me how to take the dust, not like that, like that. How to clean house. All that what my mother never asked from me. She said, "One day you'll be on your own. If you're rich, you'll have a maid. If you don't know what to do with yourself, you won't be able to tell her how to do it. So | want you to know, | want you to do it. And then you can give orders to somebody else. But first, you have to teach yourself to do it.

You have to decide your own, because you never know, maybe you have no parents one day". She knew that it might happen. She wanted to prepare me mentally, as well as her husband who, | told you, was very intelligent and was very realistic and he thought it might happen that she will be alone left, so let's prepare her. But, | didn't want to think about it. Sometimes you know it's going to happen, but you don't want, you don't want to think it's going to happen, you don't want to accept it. But that's it.

Q: How long did you live in hiding with these people?

A: | lived two years. They wanted, also, after the war, not to give me back, they wanted to adopt me when my uncle came and stayed. But the aunt was not pleasant because she left her husband and went away with the Englishman and for a long time the husband thought that | had something to do, that | helped her out.

And | didn't know, | was very naive. They used to go everything, Monday, to Brussels, and they took me along, we went to movie, we went shopping, after the war, the wife of my uncle, my aunt. And then one day | became sick, they went by themselves, they never took me again. They liked to be by themself. | didn't know why, they had an affair, | didn't know what's an affair. | didn't know what's an affair.

So he was a little angry at the end, he say, "I give so much of myself to that girl and she didn't be thankful to me". So my uncle said, "She was naive, it's not that she was mean or what. She didn't understand".

Q: Your uncle thought that somehow you had a role in his wife?

A: The uncle, the non-Jew. Yes.

Q: The pretend uncle.

A: The pretend uncle thought | have a role by helping them to get together while | didn't understand and | didn't want to say that on the tape, I'll tell you later, | didn't understand. That I'm helping or not, | didn't grasp, | wasn't like that.

Q: Were you able to hear anything about your parents during, when you first moved in with these people who hid you? Did you keep in touch at all?

A: A week or two, that's all. A week or two. Two weeks, that's all, not more.

Q: So how did they keep in touch?

A: The people who lived next door to us would call him at work, my uncle, my pretend uncle, but then they stopped calling. And when they were taken away, and the money finished, every three months they paid for me, they paid money, they should keep me. So she used to say to me, "How will we get the money?" Because they also took me a lot because of the money they needed, naturally. So the man, the owner from the apartment, non-Jew, used to send the money every three months like before. His own money.

Q: A friend of your father?

A: No, the owner of the apartment where we lived, my parents, he sent his own money because he said later, he was afraid maybe I'll give me up or what and he send the money every three months. And we in touch with his son, he's dead. His son is in touch and he would say the nicest thing in every letter for Christmas and New Year that he writes me, "My father didn't save you to go to a country where there is war all the time. My father didn't save you". Every year he writes me the same sentence. A nice man, he's around my age and he's nice. We used to play when we were young and he's very nice, he writes me very nice letters. And such kind of people | like get in touch and like to be in touch.

Q: So how long was it after you went into hiding that your parents were deported?

A: Half a year, four months. Four months.

Q: How did you hear about that? Who told you?

A: A long time after that they told me. They didn't tell me that when it was fresh, months after that, they didn't want me to know, they didn't know what reaction | will have and they didn't know. They didn't tell me that when it was fresh.

Q: When they did tell you the story, who told you?

A: My aunt, my aunt. It was Raphael, yeah, Raphael told her a few days after because she didn't live far away, but she told me. She first prepared me a little and she say, you know, "They're deporting a lot of Jews from Antwerp", and they would never had been deported so fast if not that woman because in the street where we lived, was two Jews, a man and a family and we, like | told you, it was not a Jewish neighborhood. But if not that woman, maybe they will stay til after the war or maybe a few months, but it was not a Jewish neighborhood and all the people knew each other and they would never squeal like she did. She really squealed on them.

Q: How do you know what happened, how did you get the details?

A: Somebody after the war told my uncle that they were taken to Auschwitz and that's it. That's it.

Q: But the story that you tell, for instance, about your brother hiding, how did you...

A: There was that woman on the third floor, was like, how do you say, easy, easy going, and after the war went to her office and suddenly | feel a woman giving me a slap on the face and shouting and and everybody turns around. She didn't know that I'm alive and that | was hidden and she, when the German came, wanted to take, like | told you, my brother, hid him under her bed, didn't want. So she knew and she saw when they were taken away, she told me everything then.

Q: She hit you?

A: She got so excited, nervous, she didn't know that | was alive and at the same moment, she remembered that she wanted to save my brother and he didn't want to stay with her, so she was so, | don't know how to say in English, she was very, she was out of herself seeing me in there, it was not that she hit me from anger or what, she was so, she couldn't believe that it's me in the stair. If 1, it would be 20, 30 years you can change, but that was three, four years, so | didn't change so much in the four years, that she didn't recognize me. And | was with my uncle, my uncle didn't understand, too, and then she excused herself, we went to drink a cup of coffee and she explained. And she told us that and then at night, the same night, | was very hysterical. And what my uncle did to calm me down, but | was very, | knew they not coming back, but the way she told us in there, it was reopen the wound they call it. It was like reopening a wound. That's it.

Q: But also maybe helping to close it, possibly.

A: Yeah.

Q: You were getting some information that you didn't necessarily have.

A: It was bad information and you wanted to know, so it's both together, you understand? It was information, good and not good. It can be sad, if it's good or not good.

Q: When were you told that your parents were deported? How old were you, do you remember?

A: Around 16, 16.

Q: After about a year or two?

A: Yeah. No, when | was, a month or two after they were deported. When | heard they wouldn't come back, we used to have 13 bedrooms and then every two days my uncle would sell another bedroom because he saw there is nothing, nobody coming back. And we had saved a few apartments from the family, we had a big house with a lot of bedrooms. So every night | would come back, there would be another bedroom for me. See and it was very demoralizing, very. And then my uncle took his package and went to South America. And | stayed in Belgium.

Q: Who told you that they had been deported? | mean, where were you?

A: | was with my uncle and it was...

Q: Pretend uncle?

A: No, no. It was my real uncle, after the war and they, | don't remember, it was some friends of my uncle that they heard from somebody else that was in the camp with my parents. And they saved themself. There was a few, very few, people that came back from Auschwitz, not many. Maybe if my brother wouldn't have gone in the line for my father, because they took younger people separate, he would have lived, but he wanted only to be with my father, he was very close to my father. And he was young, they would have kept him, they would put him to work or, but he didn't want.

Q: He was like your father who stayed with his father.

A: Yeah. Maybe.

Q: | just want to get this clear, though. When were you, you weren't told right away that they were deported, who told you that and were you still, you must have still been in hiding? That they had left your home.

A: Oh, that was months after, two months after | was hiding. My pretend aunt.

Yeah. The man, who later on paid for me, must have called or written to her about that. And if | didn't get any mail, | never looked at the mail, understand.

Q: What did it mean, did you know then that they had been sent to Auschwitz?

A: No, no, no. | knew they were deported, but at that time we didn't know what and when or Auschwitz, no, we didn't know. Didn't know. Some of the people who went to Auschwitz, | read a lot about it, didn't know. They didn't know. But, like again, | tell you, if they would have, if they would take me, they would take my pretend aunt and uncle because there were a lot of people that happened to them.

And some Jews squealed on other Jews, like that boy who wanted to squeal on me. He said, "Why should | go, why shouldn't she come?" | don't know what an interest, | wouldn't do it because why should | take you? It's enough I, but people are selfish so they want you to be in the same situation...

End of Tape 1.

Tape 2

Q: This is an interview with Anny Kast, K-A-S-T, conducted by Katie Davis on

August 5 in Silver Spring, Maryland. This is tape number two, side A. Did, was

your friend, Raphael, whose papers you had, you were pretending to be Raphael,

was she ever able to come visit you during that time that you were in hiding?

A: | think she was there once, that's all. Yeah. Because they tried not to have

people over, they say they brought over their niece, me, and they didn't want.

Because she was also a child, she can say something that she shouldn't or what.

Neighbors and it was not, not recommended. Probably that's what the aunt said, |

will have to ask when | see her, God will, how many times or if she came. But |

don't think more than once, if | remember well, but I'll have to ask her.

Q: Did you ever feel sometimes, you're a young girl, did they actually call you

Raphael? Did they say, Raphael, when they called you?

A: No, when there was no one strange, they wouldn't call me, my name is Anny,

they wouldn't call me Anny, they would call me a short cute name, Annime(ph),

that's my Anny, but if you would be there or a stranger, they would call me,

Jeanine(ph). She changed my name from Raphael, Jeanine to Raphael. My

name, at home and at school was Jeanine, it was a French name. And then she

changed it when she went to France and she wants only to be called Raphael.

Must be that her real name now is officially Raphael, because when | send her a

check | write Raphael, too. So it must be.

Q: So was there ever a time when you felt like telling people, I'm Anny Kast, I'm

not, was there ever just a rebellious...

A: Anny Rubenstock(ph).

Q: Anny Rubenstock.

A: No, never talked. No, you see, that man wanted to know, | never told, because

she told me, "Never tell anyone. You are Jeanine , and that's it.

Nobody ever has to know that". She never, she didn't let me and | didn't do it. And

| went to the nuns for the English lesson or what, sometimes they would say,

"Jeanine". | would look, | wouldn't know, you know? It reminds me they wanted to

take me in Israel to the and spy. After the war when | came to Israel

because | know language and | went through so much. So one of my friends spoke

to somebody about spies, so that man came and he asked me, would | be

interested to be in a, would | be interested to be in another country and work for

Israel? | say, "Yes". They went through with all the, now | don't like to go toa

doctor, | went to doctors for months, | went to psychiatrists, | went to everything.

But when did | fall through? When they say if | knew to hold a gun, | say, "No". | say . But they would go and find out who are my friends, what's my family, they went in the background. But then when the called the hospital, they called my name, | don't remember what it was, | jumped up, | forgot it's my, because | didn't go to my name. They didn't want me to know. It reminds me when they said, "Jeanine" in school, | looked like, it's not me. And the teacher says, "Jeanine". And oh yeah, it's me.

Q: You had a photograph with you. You did have a photograph didn't you?

A: At that time, yeah.

Q: Who gave it to you?

A: | don't remember. | don't have one picture from my brother, not one. | don't have it. That's it.

Q: Do you still have the photograph of your parents?

A: Yeah. | have of my parents , my mother, she was a beautiful woman, that's my mother. It's beautiful, no? Yeah. They say she dressed beautiful and she was a beautiful woman.

Q: This is in the 20's maybe?

A: Probably. But look at the clothes.

Q: Gorgeous.

A: The long clothes.

Q: Yeah, it's very long.

A: Yeah, that's what they wore then.

Q: Do you think your father made that coat?

A: No, no, no.

Q: No. Do you remember, what did you, what was your idea of what was happening to people when they were deported? Did you have any sense of what was really going on?

A: Nobody had a sense. At that time, nobody had a sense, nobody knew. They didn't talk about it so much, they didn't know that, we knew it's not good, it's not a good sign because | was reading. | will tell you an example, my aunt, , her mother was English, Polish and her step-father was English, she was 82 years, very religious man, she was 45. She married him for his money. Really.

Q: "

A: My aunt's mother, my aunt, real aunt. My father's brother's wife. And the man was 82, extremely religious, the woman had only one daughter, my aunt, and wanted to leave when she would die, everything her daughter. So she married that man to be rich. And | was sitting by my aunt, make believe, and | had a paper, the Belgium, was a German, went in the house where she lived, cut her tongue and made him a cripple, and they both died. | read it in the paper, my aunt never would have known. | gave her the paper years later. So, , got the money and she married that man at age 43, 82. | remember as a child, he had a white beard, he was a very old man. You know, when you are 15, 14, 13, and a man of 82, an antique, but it was also a for her, she was 42 years, she married a man of 84. Just for the money and then he died, she died, she never got the money. She had to stay with a man so old. So, and then, you know, a man 82 was old, now it's not the same, but then, especially a religious and the beard and the...

Q: Do you remember beginning to hear or think maybe the Germans are going to be defeated?

A: We heard about it and they bombarded a lot of the time, the little town where we were near the train and they bombarded, we were all the time hiding out in the cellar. And during the bombardments, the end of the war, and we say maybe the problems will be solved. We didn't know, you know, maybe the people will come back. Maybe, the problems will be solved, let's put it this way. But, we didn't know what to expect. No, you didn't know. You didn't know what's going to be and what's going to happen. Not at all.

Q: Tell us about when things changed, when the Germans were defeated.

A: When they were defeated, so my make believe aunt went with me to the nuns and told them that | was Jewish, but | liked their behavior and that | studied well and they helped me a lot in life and | went then and | bought a big plant, flowers for the Mother Superior, who was very nice to me. We were happy. Because they never knew, she never told them. It was nice.

Q; What did they say?

A: They were stunned at first, they looked and they didn't really believe that they did such a thing because they knew as well as she, if | would have been taken, the same would happen to her. She, they knew it and she knew it all along. But she has to hide me but she has to hide that she has me in her house.

Q: How long did she wait before the Germans were defeated to do that? Did she feel confident right afterwards?

A: | think she waited about a week or what, something, to tell them. And to tell them this whole story and my parents were taken away and we don't know what happened, what will happen with me because we didn't hear yet from my uncle that he was alive and she said to the nuns, "I'll be coming", because she wants to adopt me. You understand that that's a decision that she and her husband made, but nothing came out.

Q: Do you remember, was there like a very distinctive memory from liberation, of Allied troops?

A; Oh, yeah.

Q: Tell us about that.

A: It was something very, very pleasant, the whole town and everybody.

Especially, | was extremely, extremely happy and jovial, how do you say, because | knew maybe | will see my parents soon and my brother, my family, so it was my wish. Everybody had another wish, to see their beloved or what, but |, | just thought about that, that soon, to me | will go to my parents, that they will be better than her. You understand? But it took time. Then after a few weeks, my uncle came and, well, he came from the nuns and he had taken his house back.

Q: Who had been in the house?

A: Nobody.

Q: Okay.

A: They had taken out a lot, the German furniture, good things, antiquities, but otherwise they left the house and it was not , but it was a terrible feeling to go in the house because | remember like now, there was a long hall and there was a little shoe of the little girl they took away, a year and a half, it was on the floor, that she lost. So, a million and a half children they killed, what do you want. A million and a half. That's a lot.

Q; So you went in the house with him and there were some of these items from, it was like going into a time capsule?

A: It was terrible. An example, the pot was on the gas for a year and a half.

Because it was Friday night and they made food, it stays overnight, cooking

, you know what it is because they wouldn't cook on Saturday. And that pot was on the, you know, it's like you leave now all dead and | come back and see four empty glasses while nobody lived here. Who were the four people? Who

drank from that. So it's a very, very unpleasant feeling. So then, when | met people, they didn't go through nothing, they stayed with their husband and children and they saved themself, they're getting money from Germany and how much you want. So it hurt me. Because | say, even if | wouldn't need the money I'll give it to Raphael, but it should come to me more than to you that you had your family, you stayed all over the war with your family. That's a big plus. Right?

Q: Do you, what was it like when you first saw your uncle?

A: It was a good feeling, good feeling. But, | still, at that time, | suffered a lot from my eyes, | cried a lot, | cried day and night. And | came to my uncle and | say, "I want to see you, but | want to see my parents". The he took me to see my grandmother who spent all the war in the hospital, | told you and came out. She was the first funeral, Jewish funeral in Antwerp when she died. But before she died and | used to come to her, she was a little mixed up, but still she would say, "Why doesn't your father come to see his mother, why do you come to see me?" Understand? She didn't grasp the situation. | didn't know then. But she was the first funeral, my uncle was very upset. So, he said, "If you don't stop crying, I'll put you in with your grandmother because you have to stop crying". But some people can cry when they're told enough. It's a thing that's inside. Or you cry or you don't cry, right?

Q: It sounds like you did cry.

A: Oh, a lot.

Q: You cried.

A: Cried a lot.

Q: Cried yourself out.

A: Yeah. Now, when my husband died, | cried a little bit, | can't cry and that's bad.

| envy these people who crying, crying, crying, for no reason. And when you , you cry, it's good. It's very healthy they told me.

Q: So what did your uncle say? | mean, obviously, what did you uncle say about your parents? And then what might happen?

A: He didn't know at the time. He didn't know. He only said, "Let's hope they come back". At that time, there was still a lot of hope. You understand? Everybody hoped it will go okay.

Q: So you didn't go, did you ever go to your family apartment? You were in your uncle's house, but did you ever go to the apartment where you lived with your family?

A: | went to these people who paid for me and | was very nice to them. What a gift.

And my uncle paid them back for all these years that they paid, you know, they were very nice. | went to say hello to them. But it was a half a year after | stayed with my uncle. And all my friends started to go out, have a good time and | never had a good time. Because | worked. My uncle opened a store in Belgium and | used to sell the American, the English, [phone ringing, pause in tape].

Q: So it was just your uncle and you?

A: Yeah. No, it was, after that, came a nephew from his wife, from Treblinka. And he was Polish and didn't know Belgium, but he heard somebody is and he stayed with us. And my uncle when to South America, he wanted everything, everything. He came back from Treblinka where he saved himself.

And that's it. He came like from nowhere.

Q: Did he talk about what it was like in Treblinka?

A: | don't remember because he used to talk very badly Jewish, a lot of lot of Polish and | didn't know a word of Polish. But he spoke very little. When he came, he weigh maybe, he was maybe like that. So later he gained weight and he became more person. But when he came he was very depressed and my uncle helped him alot. But otherwise, it was the two of us, that's all.

Q: How, tell us again how you finally really heard about your parents. When that was and how you heard what happened.

A: | tell you, | heard that they were taken away a few weeks after | was hidden.

And then only after the war, a month or two, maybe later, they started to

us that people were killed and gassed and so on. Before that, people didn't know, we didn't know what happened. Then we were, started to understand and to know.

Q: What were your thoughts when you first heard this story?

A: My thought was that it happened, but not maybe to them. At that point, and

very selfish, but | thought, no, it didn't happen to them. It happened, but not to them. See, you don't realize that it can happen to your own, too. You think it's only to, that's all.

Q: And who was it who told you, who was there in Auschwitz with them?

A: A friend of my uncle came back who saved himself.

Q: Tell us who he was.

A: | didn't know the man, it's a man who knew my uncle and who came back and who said that he had been with my parents and my brother, and he knows they gone. He knows. How the man saved himself or what, | don't remember, | can't tell you. But he saved himself.

Q: And did he tell the story of how...

A: My uncle never told me. Maybe he didn't want to hurt me or maybe he didn't want me to know or anyway, in short, he never told me specifically what, when and how. He didn't. | think he didn't want it.

Q: You think he knew?

A: | think he knew. More than he told me.

Q: Did you want to know?

A: Yeah, | asked a few times and | insisted a few times, and he would change the subject and tell me, "One day soon I'll tell you more if | know. If | meet aman". But | didn't ask, | know my uncle, he asked, but he didn't want to, didn't want me to ask, you understand?

Q: This was your father's brother?

A: Brother, right.

Q: Did he know how his wife and children :

A: Yeah. Also, somebody told him and how they, it was his father, his wife, his two children and his parents-in-law. They had another daughter who was pregnant seven months who went to France, they went to the France that was not occupied and they paid a fortune and they was taken there with somebody, but they were shot while crossing the border. With the money they paid and everything and she pregnant, walking hours at night, they were shot. And she was young surely, 26, 25, | don't know.

Q: How did you feel towards, did you ever see anybody who had collaborated with the Nazis? For instance, the family that squealed, as you say, squealed on your family?

A: No. We didn't...

Q:

A: | never saw them, | never saw them. And then when | came after the war, that woman and that man that were with the American who saved himself and worked underground, they say they had moved shortly after my parents were taken away.

Maybe they were afraid, | don't know, she moved. She was there living with two or three daughters, | don't remember, but she was, I'm going to smoke a cigarette. Do you mind? Five minutes.

Q: Did you, were you ever able to go back into your house, the house you grew up in with your parents, and get anything?

A: Oh, no. They had some things, but people they never gave back. And the strangers that | came to wouldn't let me in. No. And meet my sister-in-law, Patty.

Q: Hi. So you went to the house where you grew up and who was living there?

A: Strangers, people. That | never met, they didn't know me and wouldn't let me in. The owner of the house, | stayed a while with him, he say he can't ask them, if they don't want. So | went. But! went to this neighbor, who wanted to save my brother, and she accepted me really, the one who wanted to slap my face. She was very nice. She didn't slap my face because she was mean or what, it was a kind of excitement and surprise to see me. You know? If you think that person is no more and suddenly you find out the person is there, it's a very big, it was something she'll never forget as long as she lives. She was an old woman then, she must be dead, but she was very, and then it's her nature, she was very excitable in general, | remember as a child, so when she saw me and that uncle of mine, she, she got so hysterical, I'll never forget as long as | live how hysterical.

From happiness.

Q: Tell us what it was like to see your best friend, Raphael , who you, whose identity you assumed. What was it like to see her for the first time?

A: It was, it's a pity you don't know French, otherwise | would send you copies, she wrote me like, now that my husband died, and she writes to me very often. The way she writes, she writes very well. She has nobody, no sister, no brother, no nothing. And she's very, very, very warm and close to me. She, for days and days, she wouldn't leave me. She'd come to my uncle every day in the morning and stay til at night because she was so happy to see me and be with me and that. And she loved Israel. We went to the Hilton in Jerusalem and my husband wanted to stay overnight. She wants to go to a kibbutz. She doesn't want to stay. Very simple, but very nice, very nice. And she happened to be a very intelligent girl that her life changed now, but she was over-excited so in 1960 my aunt went to Nice in France and she took care of her house, because with a lake and a swimming pool and everything in Nice. And | lived in Israel and she wanted me to come. She told the man, "In case you want me to take care of the house, there is condition that | have to bring her over, | want to see her for six weeks". So | went there, everybody in Israel thought, she must be rich, she goes to Nice for vacation for six weeks. It was a luxury then. Now, everybody travels, but then it was a luxury. And she invited Raphael, too, for six weeks. But she wouldn't take a cent from me, you know, she loves me. But she would take from my niece. So | remember, | paid for the niece.

Q: What did you talk about when she, when you first saw her after being in hiding and she was spending so much time .

A: | was telling her, | was telling her what | went through and that her aunt was very nice to me. She was very, very, very stingy, very demanding | should learn and study and do and kept me busy all the time. And she said, "I know, that's the reason | never wanted to live with her". But, thank God, she say, she did something for you. And she was happy and she's happy til now when | write her a letter. And when | was sick and my husband died, she would call me from France and Israel twice a week and she really can't afford it. So, and she came to Israel, she took out a hundred dollar bill and she said to my husband, "Can you change it in Israeli money?" He said, "What do you need money for? Anny pays for you".

"No, no, no. | want to get her a gift". He says, "She doesn't need it". So we gave her cash when she left, a few hundred dollars, she wouldn't take, she says she wants a check. She's so primitive, a check she won't lose, the money she'll lose, maybe you want to buy something. She's very, but she's not demanding, oh, she's so nice. She's very artistic. She wrote to Belgium to a friend of hers who paints, to paint me a scarf, hand paint on silk. She would send it from Belgium to France, from France she would send it to me. Very artistic. And | say, "What do you want?" She wants a Star of David. So | send her with somebody, a Star of David with a gold chain. So when she came to Israel, she say, "Can | have a silver David Star?" "Why?" "One for the weekend and one for the week". So, but she is a very good, very warm person, very warm person.

Q: Did you stay in touch with your pretend aunt and uncle?

A: | told you. After the war, she left him for the Englishman. And he was a little angry thinking that | had something to do. When my uncle called him and wrote to him a few times because he wanted him to be on good, on good terms with me, but it was hard to make him believe that | didn't know. He told him, she was innocent, she was very naive and so on. And he wouldn't accept it, wouldn't accept it because he was a very, very cultivated, serious man, while that Englishman was very primitive. And that's the end. And it's a pity he didn't believe my uncle or me that | had nothing to do with that. And that's it. And she used to write to me after the war and she used to be in touch with me, wanting to know what | do and so on, but that's it.

[end of side 1 of tape 2]

Q: What was life like, you're in Antwerp now, right? Was it hard to get food after the war?

A: No, not so bad. Not so bad. It was hard after my uncle left, | was left alone.

Q: Tell us about that, why...

A: My uncle left to South America and...

Q: When did he leave?

A: In 1947, six, after the war. Went to his brother's. And he married, children. And | say | want to stay in Belgium because | want to go first to Israel to meet my family | don't know and then come to South America. And meantime, | stayed in Belgium, 18, 19, wanted to say in Belgium. But, my dream was all these years, to go to Switzerland to study international translation, instantanic(ph). | couldn't afford and | was too proud to ask my uncle. And I'm sorry to now because they say if | would have asked, they would have helped and | would have a good thing to go on in the world. | could use it anywhere | want. But | didn't do it. So, in Belgium, | really didn't have a job for work and there was that store where they sold blankets and suits from the military, the American, it was very heavy beds, hard job. | went in and | said the man | want to work. He say, "You so little, what will you do here".

But it happened to be the father of my friend, | told you before that said, "Come with me, we'll put lipstick, we'll go out". And he had remarried and child, but he knew | was his daughter's friend, so he gave me the job. And he kept me, | didn't work too hard, just make believe | work to give me salary because | was so good with his daughter that died. She was a beauty, she was a beauty. Her name was Betty, | remember. Beautiful girl. And then | went to Israel.

Q: You say you went, but how did you get there?

A: Oh, | didn't get a ticket because my uncle from South America paid and went to Israel to visit my uncle, | had an uncle, brother of my mother and two sisters. Went to visit them and then | stayed there, and that's a mistake | did in my life. Because | didn't want to stay with them and | started, like | worked for nine years in a French library, only French. So, my uncle wanted me to go and study Hebrew, but | saw they don't have money and they need my help, so | went and | worked, 10 years.

Then we opened another store, in a library, in a lending library in Haifa, and | became the manager, was the only one, only French.

Q: What kind of store?

A: French books, study, studying books, novels, magazines, only French. And then | became the manager. And | used to go to South America and come back and go to South America and come back. And then | had a bad marriage of three

years, four years. And no children or what. And then my family wanted me to stay in Uruguay. But | said a condition is if | can work and keep up and just come for the weekend to you. No, they want me to stay with them and not work. So | took my package, | went back to Israel. And | found out that working in the lending library and that was too many hours from eight in the morning to seven at night. So | wanted to get shift work. So | worked in Israel for five years and | enjoyed it very much, in the censor, you know what censor.

Q: Acensor.

A: A censor, in international calls, so | used to work with five, six countries at once, they were so happy with me. And | loved the job. And that was another job | work at from two to nine, from three to ten, not all day long. You know. And that's it.

And then | met my husband here in Israel. And he was a professor in Hebrew.

Q: What was his name?

A: Isaac.

Q: Kast.

A: Kast. And he want, he didn't want, they wanted him to work in the Library of Congress, he didn't want, he finished English and French, Hebrew. He wanted on to teach Hebrew, so he went to a private here in Washington, Yashiva(ph) Hebrew Academy, if you've heard. And he worked there. And when | came here to live, lived 27 years here, so when | came to live here, he didn't want me to work. But | didn't want to stay home 24 hours with no children, so | started to work, manager of a thrift store Haddasah(ph). And | used to send $100,000 a year for Haddasah Jerusalem.

Q: Haddasah?

A: Haddasah Hospital.

Q: Oh, okay, yeah.

A: But | worked as a volunteer and we made money, $100,000 a year, after all the expense. And | worked there a lot.

Q: Where was this thrift shop?

A: In Silver Spring, it is.

Q: It's still there?

A: Still there. Yeah.

Q: Let me go back to, how did your mother's family get to Israel?

A: They went as young girls, shortly after my mother went to Belgium with my father. They got married, had family. My uncle was...

Q: They were in Palestine?

A: In Palestine. My uncle was the only son and there were five daughters. And then at the end, before he died, that was sad, had a big job in the government. And he had his family and they had a family and that's where they lived. They used to write to my mother and my father, please come here, we'll send you the paper. So my uncle at that time worked on a train, | remember, he was the conductor. So my mother told me, "When you go to Israel, you'll go on the train, your uncle will be the conductor". And we not ready for such a life. They begged them to come. If they would have come, they would have been saved, but they didn't want. They had pity that they had such a hard life because then in Palestine you know it was all primitive, it was very hard. Not like now, it's luxury. So, that's it.

Q: What, | mean what were your feelings when you went to Israel? Did you, did you go after it had been declared a state?

A: Yeah.

Q: Okay.

A: Yeah, | went after it was a state. | liked it very much, | liked my family. But | found it a hard life to live, it was hard. It was very, very primitive at that time. But, | felt good with my family and in the country. | just did.

Q: What did you speak?

A: | couldn't talk to them. My cousin didn't know any Yiddish, he knew Hebrew, and | didn't know it. Didn't know any English. So, we spoke broken Yiddish, my uncle and me. But then, with the time, | learned the language from the street like they say. And then | went to a boarding school for six months and | learned Hebrew. And my Spanish, French is better than my Hebrew, but it's okay. | know how to talk.

Q: Did they, did they remind you of your mother? Did they seem like her, their mannerisms?

A: Yeah, yeah, no, no, they looked a little like my mother, they would always ask me questions and so on. But, they were not, they had another kind of life than we had in Belgium. And then | went to, nearly every year and a half or six months, to South America to my family. Because they wanted me to be there. And

the uncle who was with me, lives in Israel, and my three other uncles live in South America.

Q: Your uncle...

A: The, yeah, he lives in Israel.

Q: He's still alive?

A: Yeah. He's old, he's losing his strength.

Q: What is his name again?

A: Israel(ph).

Q: He must be a fascinating man.

A: Yes. He's very nice.

Q: This was your mother's brother?

A: No, my father's brother.

Q: Your father's brother.

A: Right.

Q: Yeah. | just had a question, | have so many questions. Where do you feel home is?

A: I'll tell you the truth, | feel good here with the children of my sister-in-law, but | feel better in Israel because | have a lot of friends now and | have my family, mostly, feel better, just that life is a little harder. Even now, with all the comfort that you have, you have a lot of comfort like before, used to work without air condition and it was hotter than here. But now, everything is beautiful now and it's good.

And people say, "You're not afraid?" And I'll tell you on that answer, you never know where to be afraid because | had a very good friend, by the way, who lived in Israel and her son finished college here. And he came back to Israel and they didn't want him to go to the army because maybe he'll be killed or what, God forbid.

So they moved to New York and in a few, many years ago, there was something near the, near the, some people went in in the lunch room and they killed some people. And if you will remember a few years ago, and he was one of them. His wife was pregnant eight months. So he was killed. Maybe he would have made the army and not be killed. So you cannot be afraid because it won't help you. And you can't live in a country, every minute you be afraid or you'll get crazy.

Q: Were you afraid a lot when you were in hiding?

A: | was all the time tense, as young as | was. And maybe for that I'm still a little nervous, but | don't show it. Because now my sister-in-law is not so well, but why should | shout or be angry on her or what, I'm not that type. | was not brought up like that. But inside maybe I'm nervous because | went through a lot and it hurt me a lot when | didn't get more, or how much did | get? Four or five thousand dollars, that's all from the German. While all these friends that | know, are getting monthly good incomes. One of my friends went and she said that she's not, her mind is not good. She's a year younger than |. So they made her a, an exam. She said stupid things, she's very smart. And now she gets eight or nine hundred dollars a month on Germany because she's incapable. That's what they say. She's much more capable than | will ever be, but she succeeded by lying and I'm not the type who will lie. I'm not going to lie for money. I'm not going to lie for money. But | went through, like you heard, a lot. And people who went much less through, that | know, and they are alone, they say, you should get more than I, or you should get, but, you should get. You understand?

Q: Tell us, when you applied for that.

A; | applied and | got, oh, three thousand or four thousand dollar.

Q: .

A: In 1952, 53, and then they gave me the three thousand dollars, | shouldn't have taken it, but nothing to do. And then they refuse and they, now | know the reason.

My uncle went through a lot, he lost a wife and two children, but | had a lawyer in Belgium, he was no good. That's the mistake. If you would go, it was then, you know, agencies took care of all that, and they would help you and do it. | didn't go, | went to a lawyer who took a lot of money in advance, who didn't go anything.

Maybe he got six thousand, he gave me three thousand or four thousand. But all these friends of mine, | don't know if they got a sum, but they got, they get every month now. And they really don't believe, | wouldn't lie, if | would get, | would say, why, why the lying? Some people like to lie, | don't like to lie. If | don't get, | don't get. I'm not going to say | don't get when | get. Or | get when | don't get.

Q: Could you appeal it, then?

A: | think it's too late. | think it's too late.

Q: Have you ever been to Germany?

A: I've never gone. You? No, | would never go. No interest.

Q: What about going to a place like Auschwitz.

A: I'll tell you the true, | don't, | went through now a lot, too, last year with my husband being very sick and all the family wanted me to put him away and | didn't, | took care. So maybe another year or what, you know, will be more relaxed, maybe I'll do it. Because my cousin wanted very bad to go, the one from

Israel, to the place where | was born and where our grandmother was living, but | wasn't ready to go with her because he was sick. Now maybe, I'll take a rest a year, if I'm capable to concentrate and relax, maybe | would do it. But not now for the moment.

Q: When did your husband die?

A: January, so it's still fresh.

Q: Oh, yes.

A: It's still very fresh.

Q: 5

A: Yeah. Still fresh, so, | was all by myself and it's not easy. So, that's what it is.

Q: How old was he?

A: Was not young, was 78, but , very intelligent man, but very sick. So, he just suffered the last two months, few months. So nothing could be done, so it's a pity.

Q: Did you, did you purposely not have children or was that a decision you made together?

A: No. It didn't come out, I'll tell you why | think. Because when we married, his mother became old, she stayed with her daughters, we used to go there all the time and all the time and years went by and you know, sometimes years go so fast that you don't know. You turn around and you're middle aged, you're old, no? It's like that.

Q: So you've always been with people who are always very, taking care of their families?

A: Yeah.

Q: your father.

A: Yeah, and then also, then also | used to be very friendly with somebody, she had four children and | was there and | took care most of the time of the children and now | don't know if they'll recognize me. That's it. Some stay friends with you, but some, ignore you, let's put it this way.

Q: What was it like when you got, to go back a little bit now, to Israel, this idea that you had to hide being Jewish and you could, for so long, and they got, created terrible danger for people you loved, to be in a country where you could be completely open and proud of being Jewish. What was that like for you?

A: When? When | came to Israel?

Q: When you first went to Israel and you could, you could be really relaxed.

A: Yeah, | enjoyed it. | enjoyed it. But | had a hard time because used to live in the suburbs and go, and go to Tel Aviv and stay from eight in the morning in that heat til seven at night. Not be able to refresh or what. And from one to four, the stores would be closed, so | just walked around, | didn't have what to do. So it was very hard, you understand? So | couldn't enjoy life enough because | had a hard time. And | wasn't so close to my family there because | didn't know them so long as my other family that | grew up with them. So it was very hard. But | came over that, too.

Q: Tell us a little bit about life in Uruguay, which is where your uncle lived. Who was there and what was ,

A: He had two brothers, he had two brothers and they had families. And then he got married, he had his own family. And when the children became bigger, he was afraid they'll marry, intermarriage, so he moved everything to Israel. They should get married with Jewish girls, that's what they did. Because, you know, so much intermarriage, | don't have to tell you, no? So, and he's very religious, so, very religious. So. Lived a Jewish life and always very nice. The women have it very easy, a maid costs you thirty or forty dollars a year, a month, so you can afford two maids. And life is easy, but it's still not like in Israel, it's still, it's still different. Like here, it's very nice, but here without a car, without, it's very hard, | don't have to tell you. Where do you live?

Q: Downtown Washington D.C.

A: So it's not easy.

Q: When were you ever able to say to yourself finally, my brother and my mother and father aren't coming back?

A: That was a few good months after the war. A few good months after the war.

When | saw the reality that the people who came, came already, and other ones won't come. And they began to talk and to show and then we saw that you have to accept the truth. And the reality. It was not easy in the beginning because you used to see, to go, then they didn't go like now to Auschwitz to look and that.

People didn't go like now to go, but we all the time asked, asked, we heard that somebody came back and we went and maybe he was seeing them and that, that must be the way my uncle found that man who saw my parents. That he found out that that man was in Auschwitz and saved himself and maybe it was the same time, and he learned that it was the same time.

Q: What did these people look like to you, | mean they were presumably coming back very thin.

A: Very thin, very nervous, very depressed. But, they began to live and they, that's it. But in the beginning they were very skinny and very down, mentally and physically, both. That's it.

Q: | know that at that time they had newsreels of the camps and some photographs.

A: Yeah.

Q: Do you remember ever seeing that?

A: No. | never saw that . They were all so like the museum, they have a place in Brussels now, | would like to go and see that, if God willed, if | had the occasion, they have a very, very big place, so much taller than me, and it's written all the Jews from Antwerp and Brussels who killed where, at Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen or, where they were killed. What date exactly and what time, what, and | wanted very badly to go. Somebody told me who saw it and my parents were in that list. Somebody told me they didn't see the list. So | wanted to go by myself once. | want to see, one day I'll go.

Q: Do you remember when you first saw photographs of Auschwitz?

A: It wears very much on me, very, made me very depressed. | started to take an anti-depressant and it didn't help me because | was depressed mentally very much.

And then | see it won't help you, being depressed. Talked to myself. But it didn't help, it didn't help the pills, not talking, it was depressing because some people can see movies and so on and read, they don't mind. But it's, it's a character. Because | say | would never over live it, and some people say | don't know how | over lived it and they came out.

Q: When was it? When was it that you first saw pictures?

A: All the pictures | saw "47 and before, and "46, "47. So, that's what it was.

Q: Did you ever, with your uncle, do any sort of service of sit shiva? | mean...

A: No, | keep a date that the rabbi gave me, a rabbi in Israel gave me a date and | keep that day, give a, | give a donation to Schul(ph) that day and we say kaddish(ph) and that's all.

Q: So you did mark a day?

A: Yes.

Q: And if you went to that museum, you might find out an actual day.

A: That's it, then | might find exactly the day, maybe or approximative. And | would like to go there, but no chance for the last few years because of my husband's illness, but one day I'll go. It doesn't do me too good, in "65 | was in Belgium and | went through, went from the house where we lived to where the school was and that. The street didn't change, only the stores and the people change. And it did me very bad. Stayed three days and | run away. Three days or two days, it was too much. And | think it was too much because | was alone. | was not with a friend or, | wouldn't do that by myself any more. | would only go with somebody or that | care for or, just somebody, not to go by myself, | wouldn't do it. Also you know, the nights to stay there in a hotel alone and remember the streets and that. No, no. | wouldn't go back by myself, never.

Q: You uncle's still alive, | mean, do you ever think about pressing him for details?

A: He had a stroke three years ago and his mind is good and that, | don't think he feels like talking about it. | don't think so.

Q: Do you think he'd ever do an oral history interview?

A: Doubt it, | doubt it. He's saw my tape when | showed it in Israel and it made him very, don't know, he didn't feel depressed really, feel dead because in my tape | say my uncle went to Uruguay and left me alone. So it was not a good feeling for people who heard and it was said in the room. You understand? And | couldn't, | couldn't change the tape, the tape was there, the truth was there.

Q: Did you feel like that?

A: What?

Q: That he left you alone?

A: Yeah, | felt lost a little because | was young and all my friends had parents and | was no parents, nobody, like left alone. So it hit me a little, you know. Not much, but a little.

Q: How long did you stay alone?

A: In Belgium, maybe eight, nine, ten months. It was too long. It's the way you feel.

End of Tape 2.

Tape 3

Q: This is an interview with Anny Kast, K-A-S-T. Conducted by Katie Davis on August 5 in Silver Spring, Maryland. This is tape number three, side A. I'm curious about how you think your experience hiding and your losses, 28 people, how that affected your approach to life? Maybe your philosophy or your interactions with people?

A: The feeling, to tell you the true, | had is that people are alone, like me now, should take care of themself, but I'm the person that | like to give and not wait to receive. | like to give from myself, to be good to people, to help people. If it's mentally or physically or materially, | like to give, I'm not demanding and I'm not the snob that says | have or don't have. I'm not the type to complain. | had many years that | didn't have and | never complained. And people never knew if | have or not because | made an impression | have a lot and | liked it because | don't want pity. | had enough pity during my first years, | don't want pity. That means even if | didn't have, whenever somebody came, | had cake and coffee and fruit and everything.

The people came shouldn't know the way | feel. | didn't want them to know. And I'm now like that, too. Even people in Israel, especially, are very curious. They ask you such private questions that | can't accept.

Q: About?

A: | don't want to say mind your own business, that's rude, but people there ask you, what's your income, where do you live, what do you have? | never would think to ask somebody, even somebody I'm very close, it's not my business. And | never, and | had no father, no mother, nothing for many years, | would never be jealous, and that's a character. Or envious, that's the same as jealousy, that you have that dress that cost five hundred dollars or three hundred dollars and | can't afford it, or what. Because if I'll be jealous, it won't help me get that dress because | can't afford it if | don't have that three, five hundred dollars. And it won't make me happier if I'll have that dress. And if | didn't pay for the dress, it would make me worse because why should | go with a dress that | owe the money and | don't know from where | will take the money. And | never had an envy or jealous character.

They always ask me, are you not jealous, this cousin has this, has this, has this.

Sometimes | say, poor me, | have no children and it's a pity. But then | see the problems my friend have with their children, | say I'm very happy | don't have, what do | need this problems for, | have enough of my own. So, it won't help to be jealous.

Q: Were you ever envious, though, that other people had their whole families and maybe they didn't know what they have?

A: No, but | would be angry and am, not envious exactly, of children my age when | was left alone, they don't appreciate their parents. That, yes. Because | say, they don't know what they have, they should appreciate what they have, they have parents, they have grandparents, they have aunts and uncles and cousins and they, such a big family, they don't know what they have. Some know, but not all.

Not all the people know. But it won't help me. But | never was, thank God, envious or jealous, never, never. | hope | will never be.

Q: How do you explain that you didn't become a really, really bitter person who just saw darkness everywhere, you know, that you lost so much and other people who lost what you lost, their entire family...

A: They're more bitter.

Q: And jealous, envious. But how, where did that come from?

A: | think that has to do with upbringing and the character of a person. My mother used always to say when you're grown up and you have your own house, if people come, never put three cookies on the table, put always five. Maybe somebody wants another cookie. Never say, why don't | have that kitchen set, never say.

You'll have it. If you don't have it, it won't help you. She told me, | think, as much as | didn't see her long, not to be jealous and envious. Because she wasn't. | remember my aunts had so, so much jewelry and so much she didn't have. She never envious.

Q: What do you remember most about your mother?

A: | remember she was a very good person, very good mother. She wanted me to learn ballet, what | wanted, dancing, ballet. And | went for three years and then my grandfather was so religious, he says, "She cannot dance with her legs nude". So my mother stopped my ballet. But she was a very good person, very good person.

Never demanding, she had a hard life, she didn't have the luxury we have to put the dishes and put the dishes out. You know? She had a hard life, she didn't have such a big apartment. | don't know if she had maids or not, | don't remember, but | know she didn't have a washer or a dryer or something like that, that I'm sure. And also the climate was not like here, so, | don't know. We were always clean, | don't know when she washed, when she used to take us from school and bring us from school and help us with the lesson what she could and give me private teacher when | needed, when | was a little worse in some studies or somethings. No, it was, no. But to tell the true, | don't know. She, | think she taught me not to be jealous. And | don't want to be jealous, I'm happy. My sister-in-law says a lot of times, "When will you change?" She doesn't want me to be mean to her, to her | should be good, to other people | should be mean. She's also, she's very jealous if

I'm nice with somebody. She wants to be the first. It's a character. It's like you want everything for yourself and | tell her, "You are addicted to me". She say, "Yes". It's a feeling that a person has. I'm not possessive, | don't want a person to be only mine, she can be everyone's person. But why be possessive? Will it help?

No. It won't help none to be possessive. So what can | help? | don't want to be possessive and I'll never be.

Q: Well, when you think of your parents, your mother and your father, what, is there one memory that is sort of like, if you're falling asleep and you want to think of them, is there, what's the moment?

A: The moment is that, they started to make a more living and live a little easier when they were taken away. And what | remember, as a small child, they had it hard, very hard. And then it started to be a little better and everything broke. And they were not rich or well off or what, but they made a nice living, they had two children and that's it. But it started to be a easier life than in the beginning, | remember. She had to go and come and help my father and help in the store and cook and have all the problems. You know, mending socks and fixing that, now all that we don't do. We don't have that life. And she had a hard life, very hard life.

And not convenient apartment. | remember when | was a very small child, we didn't even have a bathroom, we didn't. Now each child needs his own bathroom. No, it's true. We didn't have at all. We . And then there was more comfort and then when you can enjoy, you come into 40, then it was middle age, you don't, they take it away from you. That's a pity. They could have enjoyed a little, life, a few good years. That's it.

Q: Do you have nightmares ever?

A: Not especially. But sometimes | would see them and then get up in the morning in a very, not good mood to see somebody. Not in a good mood. But it doesn't help.

Q: Because you saw them the night before?

A: Yeah, saw them at night, not the night before. | saw them, it was like hours and it's maybe 10 minutes, but it seems like hours, you see, and then you close again your eyes, you see again. | don't know if you had that. You see somebody and then you want to forget what you saw, and you close your eyes again, you see it again. It must be strong in your mind that you see it again and again. But, that's it.

That's enough.

Q: Okay.

A: Thank you.

Q: Thank you very much.

Conclusion of interview.