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"When I left Warsaw I took a knapsack and I had a pair of ski boots and...and, uh, I had one dress, some underwear. That's about it, a comb." | |||
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Eva Rappoport Edmands Born 1929 Vienna, Austria 
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My parents decided we had to leave Vienna and that our only chance was to go to France and it was really a last-minute decision and very hurriedly we decided to leave everything behind and just pack a couple suitcases. And I remember...the one memory that I have is my mother telling me that I was to go to my room and just pick the few toys that I wanted to take with me and to be fast about it. And I remember that I was started piling up a whole pile of my things and my favorite dolls and mother came and she said, "Oh, no. You can't take all this." And she picked two dolls, and she said, "You can take two dolls. Period." And I was crying, you know, didn't really...that I felt was terribly unfair to do this to me. And so we just...they just threw some clothes in suitcases and, uh, we went and said goodbye to my grandparents and, uh, that was the last time that I, I was to see them again. | ||
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Susan Bluman Born 1920 Warsaw, Poland 
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When I left Warsaw I took a knapsack and I had a pair of ski boots and...and, uh, I had one dress, some underwear. That's about it, a comb. I didn't have anything else. I just had my father's belt around my waist. I didn't have any photographs. I even had a ring which my...and I didn't take my watch along. I didn't take a ring along. I was just so sure that I'm going to go back. I only had four American dollars and I had about hundred Polish zlotys. That's what I had, very few things. First of all, it would be too heavy to be walking across and...and carrying a heavy knapsack, you know, across the border. So that's all I had. And then when we get to Lithuania, I...we had to buy a pillow, you know. And in the Old Country when they had a pillow was one big square, not like two pillows what you got in this country. But there was one big pillow. So we had to...we bought a pillow. So we had this one big pillow. And we, you...what I'm taking with me...this pillow never left us would you believe it? We took this pillow all the way to Japan. We landed in Vancouver with this pillow. And then years later we--it was a down pillow, or feathers--we went to a place and they divided this pillow and they made two pillows out of it. And those two pillows we had for a long time, then finally we changed. And when my daughter bought a summer home we gave her those two pillows. I think those two pillows are still in her summer home. | ||
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Susan Bluman Born 1920 Warsaw, Poland 
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So consequently, as I said, Nathan found himself on the Russian part of Poland and I was still in the German part of Poland. And he wanted me to join him in the...in Lvov, that's where he finally came to. And being the youngest, well my father didn't want to let me go. He said, "No, you are too young, you cannot go." And besides, you know the morality was different than it is now. A young woman goes to a boy, it just didn't work that way. But anyhow I tried to convince my father, and finally my sister-in-law--because my young...my brother also escaped at the time on September 7th--and my sister-in-law was going to go with me also with this guide. So my father said, "Okay, but remember that you have to come back in two weeks." And of course, I was in love with my husband and I wanted to be with him. And I said, "Of course, I will be back," but not realizing that...actually I thought that I will be back, maybe not in two weeks, I'll be back in a month or two months, you know. And I said, "Of course, I will do that." And I just took a knapsack and a few things in it. No photographs of my family, nothing. And all I had was--my father gave me his belt which was, um...and which was kind of a folding belt and in this belt he inserted for me two two-American-dollar bills. And those were like four dollars, American, and a few Polish money, which after I got to the Russian side was not worth very much. And that's how I escaped from Warsaw. | ||
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Fred Deutsch Born 1932 Moravska Ostrawa, Czechoslovakia 
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Everybody through grapevine started to asking, "Well, what do we take with us?" East, we are going east. Nobody knew just how far, or where to, or at what time of the year will it be. Do we take winter articles? Do we take food with us? What exactly do we take? And there was a grapevine started working. We still didn't know where we go, but everybody was advised to take food. And now with the ration coupons again the question was, well, what food do we take? How much? Uh, after all, the food is of so...so dubious quality it might get spoiled. [Aside:] Do you want to take a break? OK. Uh, I do remember that my mother used to prepare huge cubes of yeast. I, I never dwelt on it, tried to analyze it, why yeast, but maybe it has some unique nutrition...nutritional value. Uh, we used to accumulate cubes with honey. I do remember that we purchased tubes of, of, uh, toothpaste and opened the tubes in...in their back and stuffed into the toothpaste gold coins which we still had because nobody surrendered everything. So, in that way, we started preparing for a journey which we didn't know when it will take place or where to. | ||
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