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Where were you during Kristallnacht and you reacted
to it?
We
were in Holland, and like I said earlier, we lived about twenty miles
from the border–less than that–from the German border.
And I know on Crystal Night, my father's sister was still in Germany,
and she escaped, she went to Belgium, but she was also killed in Auschwitz.
My mother's mother and my mother's two brothers came over the border
that night. It was easy because the borders weren't patrolled. They
got out and they came to live with us for a bit. That was in November,
I think it was November of '38. Obviously that was big news in the
newspapers. There was nothing we could do, nothing we could do because
that was in Germany and we were in Holland. But they destroyed a lot
of stores, killed quite a few people, and burned all the synagogues.
Can you tell us your memories of Kristallnacht?
We
were in Holland in Kristallnacht already. It was very publicized
which the Germans wanted. My mother's mother – my grandmother – and
my two uncles still lived where we had moved from in the next town
over, it's about four or five miles. My uncles were arrested at night.
And my two uncles – they were single then, they lived with my
grandmother, lived in an old house – they escaped during the
night. They got out of the prison – they had been there for maybe
six-eight hours, ten hours – and they went over the border, they
were smuggled over the border.
My
grandmother and my two uncles got out. They came to Holland in November
1938. My grandmother lived with us. My uncles couldn't stay with us
because the Dutch government was very protective because there was
some unemployment. They didn't want any of those Germans who came over
the border – mostly Jews – they didn't want anymore people
in the country, which was an excuse, we don't know what it was. So
they were interned by the Dutch government. And they were "intern
camps." you may have heard of Westerbork which was built by the
Dutch government for this. There were about two-three thousand German
Jews that would come over the border. They didn't want them loose so
they put them in camp which made it easy for the Germans in 1940. That
was basically all we had in Holland. There was no such thing as Kristallnacht,
that was in Germany, Holland was still under the Dutch government.
Of course we heard it and the papers picked it up and Germans made
no bones about it.
Did you hear about the Jew who was blamed for killing
the ambassador?
It
was France yes. That was another true story. They made it a story to
find an excuse. It's now proven in recent years – I forget the
name, I think it was in Paris or in France – that this was a
trumped up thing. There was someone killed allegedly but the Germans
killed him and used it as an excuse.
Do you remember seeing or hearing anything on that
day?
Oh,
yeah, people were very concerned. They had about, I don't know how
many, but I would say 2-3000 people escaped into Holland, maybe
not that many but close to it. And the Dutch didn't know what to do
with them. It was at the end of the Depression too. And they built
a camp, they first they had them in some monasteries or empty buildings
they had. Then they took all of those people who came "illegal," so-called,
into the country and they built a camp in the northeast part of Holland.
That was called Westerbork, which is a town where it is. That was then
taken over by the Germans in 1940 after they occupied Holland, after
May the 10th, 1940. The Germans took it over and used it as a what
they called a samalag, which it means where they selected
all the people from all over the country and from there they transferred
into Auschwitz, Auschwitz and Sobibor, that's where the gas chambers
were.
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