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3-Wearing the Star

What was the day like when you started wearing the star?

Well, have you ever seen the star? Its about - it's the Star of David in yellow, and in the middle, in Dutch was "JOOD" which means Jew. And it had black outlines on it and you had to go out and buy those, and then you had to sew them out on every outer garment that you wore on the left side, on your breast. SO if it was raining, you'd have to have it on your raincoat, if you took it off, there had to be one underneath. If you had a sweater on, and you took your coat off, it had to be on the sweater. There was no limit, there was no requirement that you had to wear it on your pajama. That would have probably come next, but it didn't. There were a lot of Gentiles who actually went out and bought those stars and sewed them on. And when the Dutch fascists party found out about that, they went to the Nazis, and told them what was happening, and then an edict came out "If you who are not a Jew are wearing a Jew star, you will be picked up, and you will be sent out of the country to where the Jews were going."

Did you know of any Gentiles who wore the star?

No, I don't know anyone who would, but that's common knowledge. I mean, you read the history books about that time in Holland, and you find practically whole chapters on it.

Why were the Gentiles wearing stars?

In sympathy with the Jews, and as a protest against the Nazis. That's why they wore them. There were many socialists who would wear them or communists who would wear them, and this was basically done in sympathy with the Dutch Jews.

If you took off your star, how would the Nazis know you were a Jew?

Because you were forced to register. Now the one thing that they, the Jewish community did in Holland - Jews had been living in Holland since the 1600's. After the Spanish Inquisition, like my own ancestors, they came to Holland in 1613. My ancestors were kicked out of Spain, and then Portugal, and finally came back to Holland by way of the new world, believe it or not, to Holland, and they arrived in 1613. Now, many of, in those days, all the birth certificates were in the Synagogue. That's where you had to register. And so what the Jews did not want to do was not bury or burn those old records. They were historical documents.

And so the Nazis took those things and just went right through those lists of current value, they wouldn't care who lived in 1600, but they were very much interested who lived in the '30s and the '20s. And so they took those names out. So they had a total list of who ever was a Jew in Amsterdam. For that matter where I lived - and people have never forgiven the Jewish leadership that, to say, "Why didn't you burn the God dam things?!" Then we would have been of much-freer to say "Screw you, were not going to register." So that's how this all came about. Part of it was historical importance, some of it was fear, some of it was, I would say, um, "Oh, nothings going to happen to us why bother?"

Were you surprised that people were making you register and wear your stars, or did it seem like it was going to happen anyway?

We're back in 1942. We knew about the Kristallnacht by now. We knew about the persecutions against the Jews in Germany. We then heard about the persecution of the Jews in Czechoslovakia. We heard about the Jews being persecuted in Austria. You know, all this news comes back, and nobody will ever believe that it's going to happen to you. So, when the edicts come out of wearing the star, and doing this, and that, and the other, everybody shrugs and says "So I wear a star. I can't go to the movies. I can't go to the restaurant." Nothing becomes important until the day you get picked up, and then it becomes important. And then you wonder, "Why didn't we resist?"

But wouldn't you start to wonder before that? It just seems weird that you wouldn't wonder before that occurred.

Do you know where Holland is? Can you get a mental picture of Holland? From the North to Belgium is one coastline. All water. On the East is Germany, no way to escape there. To the South is Belgium, which is already occupied. Denmark is occupied. There's no place to go. The only people who went out were the very rich who saw this coming, or their friends had told them. They had money, they got their visas, and they cleared out in 1937, 1938, even 1939, even in 1940, before they were ever invaded. Poor people never have a chance to escape anything. Rich people do. It doesn't matter what you go through in life. The rich always have a way to get out. The poor have to take the suffering.

Arrested

This is a little bit further back, but I read that you got arrested. I was just wondering what you did?

OK. The Germans moved in in 1940. Holland is defeated in five days. I have a bicycle - the Jews don't have to turn their bicycles in until 1942. So in 1941, I'm being all of 17 - I guess that's your age here isn't it? I asked permission of my parents could I go to the recreational area of Holland, which is called the Veluwe, which is about 30 miles south of Amsterdam, and my parents say "Go!" I went on my bicycle and my rucksack, I went down there and I met about four young women, also about my age, And we met up, and I became infatuated with one of them. And we corresponded back and forth. She was Catholic, but didn't know I was Jewish, and I - not being important at the time - I never made mention of it. Being in Holland, it wasn't important what religion you were, you know, you left it alone.

So, now, the Jewish edicts come into play, and I go into hiding, after my sister has been picked up in December of 1942. She had just turned 16. Who's 16 here? She had just turned 16 on the 24th of November, and she was gassed in Auschwitz on the 10th of December. I just want you to think about that for a minute - all of you who are 16. My mother went out of her mind, tried to commit suicide, tried to throw herself out of the window.

My father decided I should go into hiding. And a hiding place was found for me, and I went there, in Amsterdam. I continued to correspond with the young woman, the young girl, and where I was in hiding, every night, a man would show up who came to dinner, and then he would leave. So one day I ask him, "Would you mail this letter for me?"And he did, and so he took it. He ate his meal, went, that night he was arrested, they found the letter.They came looking for me. Because of an infatuation with a young woman I wound up in Auschwitz. That's how I got arrested. So love is blind.

Did they take you to jail?

No! The day that they came looking for me, the son of the people where I was hiding happened to be at the window, and saw the car or the police arrive, and he said "Max, the police is here!" and I ran up to the roof, across the roof, and hid behind a skylight. It was early evening. They came looking for me with flashlights, they couldn't find me. And about ten o'clock somebody came up, and said, "Max, come down, come down." And I came down, and they gave me a satchel with my clothes in it, and some money, and they gave me a safe house address. So, its at night, I know I don't wear a star, or anything, and I go there, and I ring the doorbell, and the guy looks at me, and says "I know you. You used to live in this neighborhood. I know your father." I said "yes," and he said, "come in, quick." So I was in the safe house, and they were looking for another hiding place for me, and they couldn't find any. I told them, "look, I know where the key is to the apartment of my aunt who has already been picked up. Why don't I go get the key and go live there?" So they thought that was not a bad idea, so I went down, with my satchel, went to that address, found the key, opened the place, went in, and lived there.

And I would go out and do shopping and go in and try to make the appearance that there's no one is living there. No lights on. I'd sleep, and I'd just, you know, whatever I had to eat, I cooked very quickly. Then one afternoon the doorbell rang, and I wouldn't answer it, and they kept persistently ringing the door, so I opened it and he said "You're Max Garcia." And I said no I'm not, you've got the wrong person, and they said "We know that your Max Garcia, and so I pulled out my ID, and said no that's who I am, and he said, "No, those are false papers, we know who you are, come with us." So then I went to the police station, and that's where I got my first beating. Then I was taken over to the assemblage point in Amsterdam where I got my second beating. Then I was just tossed among the poorer people waiting there. Later on - about a week or two later - I was sent off to the camp that I just mentioned, that the Germans had first come in as immigrants, and then from there I was sent off to Auschwitz.

After all these deaths and all this, what did you do with your emotions?

I had no emotions. I had none. It is so weird to tell you that. But, you are so caught up in this whole thing, there is no time for you really to start thinking about all that. You know, your sister has disappeared. She went out in the morning, we had breakfast together, and that was it. She was gone. And then, you know, you sit there, your mother cries all night, all day long. Sisters come over to console her, neighbors. But you're working. You're out there. You don't come home till about 6 o'clock. And somebody has to cook dinner, and you eat it, as I said there's no television, there's no radio- there's nothing to do. So, its, it's a time warp in a certain sense. Emotionally. And it's very difficult to explain. But, you feel kind of blank, maybe, but emotionally involved in the sense of breaking down and beating your head against the wall, no. I don't recall that at all.

How did you get word of your sister's death?

My sister had been working as a seamstress just inside the ghetto. She had gone on a mid-morning coffee break, which they would do, and they would sit outside the Atelier, on the canal, and they raided that district, and they picked her up. And when she didn't come home that night, we began to wonder. And, we had no telephone, and you couldn't go outside, so everybody had to sit back and fear the worst. And so the next day, word began to filter out of the ghetto there had been a raid in that district, and they practically had the names of all the people who had been picked up, and my sister was among them.

Westerbork Transit Camp

Do you know where they were going?

Yeah. They went to Westerbork, the transit camp. And remember, you're 16. You come to Auschwitz. They look at you, you're standing in line with four other women next to you, five in a row. They ask you a question or two. If you're lucky, they keep you. If not, they look at you, and say "Fftt! - To the gas chamber." And that's how it was done. Out of the trains, into a line up, and off. I went through the same thing, when I got there.

After Jews began being taken away, did the Jewish community become closer, or more distant?

The first thing was we lived outside the Jewish ghetto area. So this first thing you don't want to do is go into the Jewish ghetto area, because you know damn well that's what it might have- any moment they might have a raid or not! They would pull up the bridges across the canals, and if you look at the map of Amsterdam, if they pull up three bridges, everybody is caught in that area. So you don't go there. My mother had a sister living in a newer section of Amsterdam, and she might go there. But then she'd have to walk back, because she couldn't take the streetcar, and there she is with a star on. Any person, any policeman could pick her up. So, you know, you become basically a prisoner in your own place. Or, if you work like I did, you know, you went from point A to point B, and from point B back to point A. You didn't go shopping, you couldn't go to a movie, you know, you weren't much interested in anything.

Did anybody ever consider retaliating?

Whitney, what do you retaliate with?

Well, I just mean the whole Jewish community comes together...

This is not Warsaw, OK, where the whole community were in a ghetto, with walls, and they had underground passageways, and they had arms smuggled in. You know? And they had ammunition. They could do something. Amsterdam, if you dug too deep, there was water. Because, you know, Because Amsterdam is practically below water, in Holland. The illusion, or the concept that there might be a resistance of some sort, or an armed resistance, first of all not plausible, number one. Second, you had no arms. You're not going to fight an army like that with knives. And, you know, people are scared. They're afraid. You don't look for trouble.

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