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"We took everything into a suitcase, and we grabbed the baby carriage and put it on top of the baby carriage." | |||
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Johanna Gerechter Neumann Born 1930 Hamburg, Germany 
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We left with the ten marks per person. We left with the little package that was packaged in Hamburg, and that's all we had with us. We arrived in Bologna the next day, and...uh...here we didn't know what we would be doing because the ten marks by now had been used up the one night in Munich, and...um...the Meyer family of five and the three Gerechters stood on the platform in Bologna and really didn't know where to turn. To our great surprise...um...there were Italian students who...um...were organized by the Jewish community of...uh...Italy, and apparently in many such centers of...uh...cities where trains would come from Germany, these students had made it their business to be there and...uh...receive German or other immigrants that were fleeing Germany. Well, I remember two students taking us in hand, taking us to a beautiful, beautiful hotel, and caring for us for an entire week until we were able to receive money from our relatives in America, and the same went for the Meyer family. Um...the money had to be...uh...dispatched, and I guess in those days...uh...telegram was already in existence, of course, but I don't know how quickly it went. But we were for an entire week taken care of by these students in Bologna who also took us around town, showed us Bologna, fed us, took us to restaurants, and just took care of us until we were able to...uh...pay for our passage for, first of all for...for our ticket, railroad ticket, from Bologna to Bari. In Bari we took a boat to Albania. | ||
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Norbert I. Swislocki Born 1936 Warsaw, Poland 
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My mother, uh, decided to flee after, uh, she received word from my father who was in Vilnius [Vilna] at that time. We were in Warsaw still. And, uh, his message, which was delivered by a friend who was returning to Warsaw from Vilna, was that my mother should take me and any other members of the family and just leave Warsaw, 'cause Warsaw was occupied by the Germans. And Vilnius was in Soviet hands, and the Soviets were not considered to be as dangerous as the Germans were. And so she went around as I recall, talking to some relatives, grandparents, brother, sisters, uh, trying to convince them to leave with her and none of them wanted to go. Uh, so she decided to take me and just leave. Uh, it was a remarkable decision I realize at this time, uh, for a woman to decide to take her less than four-year-old son and just essentially walk out of Warsaw with what she could carry. I mean she had me in one hand, by one hand, and in her other hand she had this small suitcase. | ||
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