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BILL BENSON:
Good afternoon and welcome to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. My name is Bill Benson and I am the host of the Museum’s public program, First Person. Thank you for joining us today. This is our 10th year of the First Person program. Our first person today is Mr. Isak Danon whom we shall meet shortly. This 2009 season of First Person is made possible through the generosity of the Louis and Dora Smith Foundation to whom we are grateful for again sponsoring First Person.
First Person is a series of weekly conversations with survivors of the Holocaust who share with us their first-hand accounts of their experiences during the Holocaust. Each First Person guest serves as a volunteer with this Museum. We will have a First Person guest each Wednesday through August 26 and our First Person guest every Tuesday through the end of July. The Museum’s website at www.ushmm.org provides a list of the upcoming First Person guests.
This year we are offering a new feature associated with the First Person program. Excerpts from our conversations with survivors are available as podcasts on the Museum’s website. Several from this year have already been posted. Isak’s will be posted within the next few weeks. The First Person podcast join two other Museum podcast series, Voices on Antisemitism and Voices on Genocide Prevention. The podcasts are also available through iTunes.
As most of you know on June 10 a man came to the Museum and tragically took the life of Officer Steven Johns. Officer Johns in giving his life and his fellow officers stopped the gunman before he could cause more horror and harm more people. We ask you to join us in a moment of silence in honor of Officer Johns, his family and friends, and his colleagues here at the Museum.
Our frst prson today, Mr. Isak Danon will share his first person account of his experience during the Holocaust for about 40 minutes. We hope we’ll have an opportunity, depending on time, to have a period for you to ask a few questions of Isak. Before you are introduced to him I have several requests of you and a couple of announcements.
First, if possible please stay seated throughout our one hour program. That way we minimize any disruptions for Isak as he speaks. If we do have time for questions and answers at the end of our one hour program please make your question as brief as you can. I will repeat the question so everyone in the room hears it, including Isak and then he’ll answer the question.
If you have a cell phone or a pager that has not yet been turned off we ask that you do that now. If you have a pass to the Permanent Exhibition today please know that they are good for the entire afternoon so you can stay with us comfortably through our one hour program.
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims; six million were murdered. Roma and Sinti, or Gypsies, people with mental and physical disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, and political dissidents also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi tyranny.
More than 60 years after the Holocaust, hatred, anti-Semitism, and genocide still threaten our world, as we were so painfully reminded on June 10th. The life stories of Holocaust survivors transcend the decades and remind us of the constant need to be vigilant citizens and to stop injustice, prejudice, and hatred wherever and whenever they occur.
What you are about to hear from Isak Danon is one individual’s account of the Holocaust. We have prepared a brief slide presentation to help with his introduction.
We begin with this 1955 photograph of Isak, his mother and sisters in Philadelphia, when he was on leave from the US Army. Isak Danon was born in 1929 Yugoslavia. The arrow on this map of Europe points to Yugoslavia. On this map of Yugoslavia the arrow points to the location of Split, Isak’s hometown.
Isak’s father owned a small dry goods store. Isak and his three sisters attended the local school. This photograph was taken in Split in 1939 at a Jewish club’s Hanukkah party. Isak was 9 years old and he is circled to your lower left. Also pictured in this photograph are Isak’s three sisters, his mother, and his father.
Shortly after the war came to Yugoslavia in early 1941, Italian forces took over parts of the country. Many Jews fled from more hostile parts of Europe to Split and surrounding areas for refuge causing the town's Jewish population to swell from about 200 to nearly 7,000.
In 1943, after the fall of Mussolini, Isak and his father were forced to flee Split as the German troops advanced, and they travelled with partisans through the mountains. After several months, Isak and his father were reunited in Italy with his mother and two of his sisters who had gone into hiding. The arrow on this map of Europe shows the route from Yugoslavia to Italy taken by Isak and his father.
In 1944, Isak and his family were invited by the United States government to be a part of a group of 1,000 refugees to come to the United States. Isak and his family spent the next 1 1/2 years in a refugee camp at Fort Ontario Army base in Oswego, New York. This photograph shows newly arrived refugees waiting to register at Fort Ontario.
Isak and his family settled in Philadelphia after the war. This photograph was taken in October, 1946 after Isak's family left the Fort Ontario. In this portrait are Isak, his two sisters, his mother, father and aunt. Isak's oldest sister did not come to the US with the family, but stayed in Belgrade. Isak's sisters cut out a photograph of the eldest sister and put her picture into the family portrait in the upper left hand corner, so you can see that right there, because they could not bear the fact that she was with them. And [they] did a nice job you have to admit.
After the war, Isak and his family moved to Philadelphia. After working to support his family while going to night school to finish high school then to earn his accounting degree from Temple University, Isak was drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War. He would later have a 30 year career as an auditor with the US Department of the Interior. Isak’s first wife, with whom he has 2 daughters, passed away in 1997. He remarried in 2004. He and his wife Leonor have a son Joshua who will be 4 in December. Isak’s daughter Shoshana lives in the Washington D. C. area and his other daughter Aleisa lives in New Jersey. Isak also has a sister in Philadelphia and another in Baltimore and he is very close to both sisters. I am pleased to let you know that his wife Leonor and his daughter Shoshana are both with us today. Leonor and Shoshana if you wouldn’t mind waving and letting people know you are down here. Thank you.
Isak’s volunteer work is with the Museum’s Archives where he translates and summarizes personal accounts of the Holocaust in a variety of languages, are you ready for this, including Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Italian, Ladino, and French to go along with his English. With that I’d like to ask you to join me in welcoming our First Person, Mr. Isak Danon.
Isak welcome and thank you for your willingness to be our first person today. I think you just celebrated and rather momentous birthday just a few days ago?
ISAK DANON:
Don’t remind me please.
BILL BENSON:
On June the 24th, Isak just turned 80. I remember the first time I met Isak, which was a couple of years ago, as he left me at the Museum he just simply dashed across 14th street and a lot of spirit in him and a lot of physical ability. So we are pleased to have you up here looking very spry. Thank you.
ISAK DANON:
Thank you for inviting me.
BILL BENSON:
Isak you were born in the city of Split in Yugoslavia. Before we turn to the events of the war and what happened to you and your family, why don’t you begin telling us a little bit about your family, your community, and yourself in those early years before the war began.
ISAK DANON:
Okay. As you mentioned I was born in Split. It’s a small town in Yugoslavia. It had about 50,000 people. There was a very small Jewish community of about 200 people. So you can see maybe one Jewish family for 1,000 of the population. Anyway, as I think back my father had a store, a dry goods store. After school we would go and help, whatever we could do at that age. I had a lot of friends, both in the Jewish community and in my school.
The Jewish community was pretty well organized. We were not accepted as part of the regular activities, business activities or social activities. We organized ourselves. We had the synagogue. We had the social club. There was a youth club where I used to go quite often. That’s where I spent most of my spare time. In public school I was a very good student. For various reasons I used to do all the homework and everything and my teachers liked me for that so that made me feel good. The kids also liked me I think because I would let them copy my homework on occasions.
Anyway, the school system over there it was public school but religion was the most important subject. Because that was Catholic area the priests would come to school and teach religion every day for an hour. Others who were not Catholic they would have to get their religious education someplace else, some other way, but they had to get it. The Jewish kids would all meet twice a week in another school area. It was like first grade was in first row, second grade was in second row, third grade…we were very small community. Anyway, that’s what I remember from growing up.
BILL BENSON:
Isak you had mentioned to me once that young people were politically conscious. There was a real awareness of the world and politics.
ISAK DANON:
Yes, at the time, we were at the time that I was growing up everybody was politically conscious and aware of what was going on. Germany was on the rise, Hitler and his Nazi party they were conquering all over the place. We the kids, we even realized what was going on because our parents were worried and thinking about what will happen next.
BILL BENSON:
And I think you told me that you were very aware of the rise of the fascists in Spain?
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, that was the first thing. We talk about beginning of the World War II in Poland while Spain was the first country on the agenda where the fascists were recruited from all over to help fight the fascists then. The Germans they sent their Air Force to help. So Spain was the first country that Hitler sort of conquered. Then came other things after that.
BILL BENSON:
And your family, even though you were in Split, you would have the opportunity in the summers…you said you remember that with a lot of joy, going into the countryside in the summer months.
ISAK DANON:
Well sometimes we would go to the countryside and it’s funny because the city was on the waterfront. You had most beautiful beaches and we would go after school. Sometimes run to the beach and swim a little and then go to the store where we helped out. But, sometimes our parents would send us to the country where our milk lady lived. See in those days you didn’t go to the grocery and get milk. There was somebody that had couple of cows. They would milk it and then bring it every morning in front of your door, leave you a bottle or whatever.
BILL BENSON:
Really fresh milk.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, I am taking back 70 years you know, so it wasn’t so modernized.
BILL BENSON:
Isak, war came to Europe in September, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. War would not actually come to where you lived in Yugoslavia until 1941. Tell us about those years between the invasion of Poland and before the war was actually right in your community.
ISAK DANON:
Well as I said we were quite conscious of what was going on, both us children and the grown-ups. Germans had just taken over Spain and then they started re-arming. Of course, Hitler was in power, full power and the first thing they did is start getting other countries under their belt. Austria was next. The annexed it and then they went to Czechoslovakia and Czechoslovakia disappeared under the watchful eye of Great Britain and France. They couldn’t do anything. They gave Hitler the country. They said “to have peace in our time,” that was the slogan.
We were quite concerned because we knew that what Hitler’s Nazi party objective was. He wrote a book, called Mein Kampf, which means “my battle” and he explained step by step what he was going to do. He was going to conquer Europe and he was going to get rid of all the Jews. That was the objective, no secrets about it. Then when we saw when he established full power in Germany and Austria they started passing the laws depriving Jews first of their citizenship and then of their property and different rights. So you know, we watched it with trepidation.
One night that lasted three days in Germany; they started breaking everything, all the Jewish stores and homes and institutions. They burned all the synagogues and they beat up people and killed over thousand people were killed. So we watched all that with trepidation and what could we do? We couldn’t escape because all around us were countries that had signed up with Germany.
BILL BENSON:
Including Italy.
ISAK DANON:
Italy was part of the Axis power, which was Italy, Germany, and Japan. They were all…
BILL BENSON:
Do you remember being fearful of Mussolini and the Italians because they were a neighboring country?
ISAK DANON:
Well at that time wasn’t so much. It’s like you know if you have a tooth ache everything else is put on the side you know. So we were more concerned about Germany. We were saying okay, if the Germans come how are we going to fare? Are we going to survive? Somebody suggested that if we all learn a trade that we would be able to make a living and live on doing that trade. You know, work with your hands. So, they established classes, carpentry, mechanics, electrical shops, barber shops, you know just to train people, teach them all these trades.
But, people were always hopeful that nothing will happen to them. But, you know hope doesn’t mean too much.
BILL BENSON:
Right, but generally you’ve told me that years 1939-1940 were relatively normal, but there we fascist in Yugoslavia and in Split, right?
ISAK DANON:
Well, that was one of the things you could see everywhere. I mean even in Germany as they were conquer…any country you would see the local country the local fascist would prop, you know prop up. You could see them. In our area, in Split and that part of the country, the fascists were being financed by German to organize and sell this what they used to call the Fifth Column. They were, I guess we called them traitors, but they were the ones who jumped in to help Germany conquer the area. They were the first one to persecute the Jews when the Germans took over.
BILL BENSON:
Life would go on up until April of 1941. Then things changed dramatically. Mussolini and the Italians attacked your city of Split, while the Germans attacked Belgrade and the rest of Yugoslavia. Tell us about their attack on Split and what that meant to you and your family.
ISAK DANON:
We woke up one Sunday morning to the, what shall I say, exploding sounds. We thought they were mining, building a new street for their…
BILL BENSON:
Doing demolition?
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, demolition and all that. Well then we looked and wasn’t that because everybody came out, looking out their windows and the neighbors put on the radio which was Radio London they were listening to. This was our means of communication, the radio. We didn’t own a radio but the neighbor they had it and they put it loud so everybody could hear it. They told them that it was a war.
We had actually expected this because what happened all the other countries were signing up with the Axis tripartite, Germany, Italy, and Japan and Yugoslavia had signed up too. But then there were protests in many cities. The country was ruled by a King who got shot and killed and his brother took over. He’s the one that signed the agreement with Germany. He had a son who was younger at the time.
BILL BENSON:
The assassinated King?
ISAK DANON:
Yeah. He stepped in. He became 18 years old, took over the reins of the government and he broke relations with Germany. You know Germany wasn’t going to stand for that. So we expected every day that they would attack and this was Split the Italians attacked. After we heard these sounds of the bombs exploding nothing happened until we saw planes flying by. I guess the Yugoslav Army was shooting at them. But, you could see planes up here and the puffs of smoke down well below, nothing was happening.
So then Yugoslavia collapsed in about 10 days. Within a few days we saw Italian troops coming into the city. We saw their police, military police, but in full battle gear, setting up posts at intersections of the cities. They plastered the city with posters telling us, “This is a military zone. The military is in charge, Italian military. You are instructed to obey them. Otherwise there will be serious consequences.”
They were searching people in the streets. Everything seemed eventually on plain level with exception that there was no food in the stores, everything disappeared, from grocery stores, from other shops. Then they came with their instructions against the Jews. We were not allowed to go to movies or theaters. We were not allowed to ride buses. We couldn’t go to the parks. Some streets were off limits to us.
BILL BENSON:
Were the schools closed?
ISAK DANON:
Schools closed. We the kids, I mean the schools were open but opened eventually but Jewish kids were not allowed to go. Also, they fired all the Jewish civil servants like police men, fire men, teachers. And the other thing was they did not allow lawyers to practice in the courts and doctors could only practice on Jewish patients. So these were the restrictions.
BILL BENSON:
What impact did it have on your father’s business?
ISAK DANON:
Well my father had a very small business. They didn’t bother him for awhile. The first thing you had to do was change everything to Italian like the signs and all that. Then they gave like stamps, like food stamps and stuff but it was for clothing. Everything you had to cut coupons, you know. And you would come to the store you wanted to buy something you had to show the coupons. My father had some stuff that was left over from a long time ago that he couldn’t sell. People were grabbing that too. His store didn’t suffer too much.
BILL BENSON:
And that’s because goods were in such short supply?
ISAK DANON:
Short supply.
BILL BENSON:
Your father had this inventory and…
ISAK DANON:
Yeah. People didn’t care what it was like, was modern or not or you know, left over. It was pre-war material. He didn’t suffer so much, except there were always the black shirts. They were the fascists and they would control what we’re doing.
BILL BENSON:
Tell us a little more about the black shirts. Were they military?
ISAK DANON:
Black shirts were not necessarily military. They look like a scouts. They were paramilitary. They wore black shirts like German Nazis wore brown shirts. They controlled the social life and everything. They were the civilian police if you will. We had one problem with them. One time when the Germans were about to come to I guess visit or something, they had to show how strong they were and how antisemitic they were.
BILL BENSON:
To impress the Germans who were coming?
ISAK DANON:
To impress the Germans, yeah. So one day my sister and I were going to the synagogue, Friday night. Our store was near the synagogue so we said, “Let’s go get our father and he’ll come with us to the synagogue.” Well we went there and there was a lady that kept him busy, you know last minute shopper and we were saying, “Come on Daddy, Let’s go. Let’s go.” He says, “Okay.” She says, “Just one more thing.” She finally left, we were late, so we hurry up toward the synagogue and we had to cross the city square to get to the synagogue.
The city square is usually full with people and there is outdoor cafes and all that. Well this time everything was quiet except you saw people running and these fascist black shirts with the guns, with the rifles hitting people and knocking them down, kicking them. We were sort of scared and my father recognized some of these people. So he grabbed me and my sister, “Come on.” And we went around, we left there and went all around the city to get to our house. We didn’t know what was taking place but my father sort of had a feeling. So we went to the house of a rabbi who lived near us and he told us that the services had started when these guys walked in, the black shirts, about 10-12 of them.
BILL BENSON:
Right into the service?
ISAK DANON:
Into the service. They said, “Who is in charge here?” They talked to the rabbi and he says, “Yes, what can I do for you?” He says, “Okay, services are over. Get everybody out.” So he told them, “Okay these are Italian fascists controlling everything.” So he told the people to leave.
Well as they were leaving there was like steps leading to the square and the fascists made a gauntlet with their rifles and they kept hitting everybody as they were coming out.
BILL BENSON:
In the only way they could go to get downstairs?
ISAK DANON:
That’s the only way out. One thing to their credit, that’s what the rabbi said. There were two older people, two elderly gentlemen, and they would yell, “Let him go. Let him go,” "liberto" means free, let him pass. They didn’t hit them. But everybody who was you know, the rabbi had broken teeth and blood was coming out.
Anyway, and we were very scared so next morning my sister, the one that came with me, and I went early in the morning we went downtown to see what had happened. We went to…first store that we came to was my uncle’s. He sold perfumes and cosmetics. The store, the window was shattered. Inside the store was just glass all over the place. There wasn’t a single bottle of perfume left. All the cases destroyed, everything.
Then we went on toward our store. There was a camera shop. Camera shops usually had a lot of cameras. You didn’t see any, just broken glass, cases. Then we went to our store and that was lucky for us. Like I said my father had a very small store, we called it “hole in the wall.” It didn’t even have the windows to display the merchandise. It was just big, heavy, wooden doors. We saw signs of how somebody was hammering but they couldn’t break it. They just broke the signs on top, you know and all that.
So, on the city square there was a lot left over from the bonfire. We saw a lot of prayer books half burned, you know. It was lots of things from the synagogue. I even choke up when I think about it. We went to the synagogue they burned that too. From there on we didn’t have a synagogue. People who wanted to do the services they would come to our house so we can have a congregation there. Or some other people would have in their houses. That’s how the life continued.
BILL BENSON:
But clearly getting far worse at that point. Tell us, Isak, this was when this happened to your synagogue was June of 1942 I think. Tell us about your older sister.
ISAK DANON:
My older sister she was two years older than I was but she was one grade above me. I was going to tell about something about her, anyway when she was learning things in school she was one grade above me and I followed. She would study her lessons at home loudly that by the time she would learn the whole household would learn. It was a good thing for me because the next year when the teachers would present the same material to me I knew it before the teacher explained it. So they would say, “Oh my gosh this kid is a genius.”
BILL BENSON::
A whiz.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah you know look at that. I looked younger than my age. When I started school at 6 years old I knew how to read but I looked like a 4 year old. So people would be amazed, “Look at that a 4 year old he is reading.” But anyway, getting back to my sister. She always did things ahead of me. During the Italian occupation there was some agitation against the Italians because nobody likes to be occupied by foreign country. So, she was working with the underground. Nobody knew about that except I found some of the material under her bed. I was going to talk to her about it but I guess my mother also found out, so she approached her once, “What are you doing, You are going to get us all killed.” She said, “Oh Mom, no more. I promise no more.” Well she didn’t really keep her promise because at one point she disappeared and she went to the mountains and joined the partisans.
BILL BENSON:
And the partisans were beginning to gain some ground weren’t they?
ISAK DANON:
They were…yeah the partisans were getting active and they were getting eventually United States and Britain recognized the partisans as being like a fighting force over there. See there were too many different forces. Too many nationalities and each one had their own people and they were fighting among themselves and all that. Partisans were like a uniting force against Germans and Italians so when the British and the Americans started recognizing the partisans, they started sending them materials, food and ammunition , and medical supplies. My sister was already there. We would see rebellion like on the mountains we would see maybe fires burning. Sometimes they would spell things and with the fires like the leader of the partisans was called Tito and you’d see fires like that said Tito with fires.
BILL BENSON:
Burning up in the mountains? Tito up in the mountains? So right in the German’s face?
ISAK DANON:
That’s right, yeah. But I guess they would set the fires and run.
BILL BENSON:
In1943 after Mussolini was killed the Italian occupiers left Split and the partisans took over which of course then brought the wrath of the Germans and the Croats I believe. That’s when your family made some real important decisions about what to do. Tell us what happened.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah well it wasn’t much of a decision on our part. It was a logical thing. We knew what the Germans do, especially when they first take over. Immediately they take all the Jewish men and take them to labor camps, extermination camps or whatever. Anyway, so we were sort of prepared as soon as we learned that the Germans would be coming we had prepared like a backpack with supplies you know. I had my own and everybody in our house had theirs. I guess some change of clothes, a sweater, socks, things like that, and some crackers or something to eat in case that we don’t have anything. We had practice sliding down the shoot from the back window so in case they come to the door…go back. So one night, this was again on a Sunday about 2:00am, heaving knocking on our door and the neighbor was yelling, “Mr. Danon, Mr. Danon.” That’s my father, I was just a kid.
Knocking at the door, “Mr. Danon, Mr. Danon, the Germans are coming!” So we immediately grabbed our backpacks and we hugged and kissed my mother and my two sisters,
BILL BENSON:
Because your other sister had already gone?
ISAK DANON:
Yes. And I know my parents divided whatever little money they had, each one. We went toward the mountains and we went early that morning and we met other people who were doing the same thing because the others knew what was going on. We kept walking, came to a place where the road ended and then you go through the fields, mountains and you follow a I guess donkey path, you know, and keep going.
BILL BENSON:
And these are pretty significant mountains too?
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, they are very tall mountains and they are not like oh you know Catskills or Poconos….
BILL BENSON:
Gentle rolling….
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, and they don’t have motels here and there. So you go there no roads, no nothing. So you go there. We walked all day and near the evening we came to a little village and we go there and first house no roof, burned. Look at the other houses they were all burned out. This was what was happening, the partisans would come and maybe get some food or something and then the Germans would, as a punishment, burn the whole city.
Anyway, so we slept that night in an abandoned church on the floor and next day we started walking again but then there was a plane, German plane. They saw us and they came down and started machine gunning so we ran into the woods and hid and we didn’t walk during the day any longer. We slept during the day and we would walk at night. We kept walking and walking. Next day when we woke up after walking at night we woke up, lie down, so we were surrounded by men with guns and they had the only uniform they had was like a soldier’s hat indicating that they were partisans.
So they wanted to know who we were and all that. We said we were trying to join the partisans and they said, “Okay well let’s see what happens.” And they looked at who we were, asked us questions, and they broke us up in little group, in smaller groups and they had somebody lead our group in one direction, somebody else went to other, to join different units. I know when we came to another place where this guy took us we saw other men… some weapons and we were [indoctrinated] into the armed forces.
BILL BENSON:
How old were you, Isak?
ISAK DANON:
I was 14 at the time.
BILL BENSON:
14, inducted into the partisans.
ISAK DANON:
No I wasn’t yet 14, let’s see…’43. Yes I was 14 and I was in the partisans. They didn’t give me a gun but there were two other kids who night before had gone out and attacked the German bunkers with hand grenades. The bunkers were like made out of heavy cement things and it has a wall inside where they would put the machine gun. The partisans couldn’t do anything because the machine gun was shooting at them. So they had these kids slide down under the wires, you know the barbed wire that was protecting the bunker. They would slide under undetected and lob hand grenades into the open...
BILL BENSON:
Young, young kids.
ISAK DANON:
Young! One was 12 years old. Anyway, so we went with partisans roaming from one end to another. Sometimes they would attack either German units or Croatians and maybe there would be 25, 30 of us and we attacked and were one point and then half of us would have to run around, all the way around and attack them from the other end to sort of suggest that there is many of us, that they are surrounded. This was pretty dangerous game that was being played at the time.
Going back and forth for months to the mountains eventually we got to the coast line. Not where Split was but much further down. At that point the Americans and British had already, yeah, already landed in Italy. They from there they would send PT boats into Yugoslavian coast during the night. Yugoslavian, the partisans would go with their rowboats to the PT boat, unload and take it.
BILL BENSON:
Weapons and things like that…
ISAK DANON:
Weapons, medical supplies, whatever. Also partisans began sending their wounded people on these boats to Italy where Americans and British had hospitals. We got there to one place and then we went to an island nearby. We stayed there for a couple of months with the partisans. Then one night my father he disappeared. I didn’t know where he went but later I learned that he got on one of these boats escorting the wounded partisan. They went to Italy across. When I learned that I said, “Well I am going too.”
BILL BENSON:
Before you tell us about that, your father had an incident though that occurred before he left.
ISAK DANON:
Oh yeah, that was…We were from the city and my father had not been used to this rough stuff in the mountains and he was also very religious…and every morning he would, we were staying in that barn, every morning he would get up and go around the barn and he would say his prayers. He would silently recite the prayers. Well, in Jewish religion the men are supposed to cover their heads when they say their prayers. So, he would take a handkerchief and cover his head. Anyway, and he was reciting a prayer and somebody must have observed him, a peasant or somebody, and they saw his lips moving so they thought maybe he was talking to the Germans, you know where the partisans were located.
BILL BENSON:
Like on a little radio or something?
ISAK DANON:
Yes. This was a big problem for the partisans because some people were pro-Germans and they would denounce the partisans so somebody that saw my father reported him to the partisans, to the command of the partisans. So, that was one time when my father disappeared. I didn’t know where he was.
BILL BENSON:
Because they actually accused him of being a spy for a little while, right?
ISAK DANON:
That’s it. Yeah. So he told me the story later. They took him, they came they took him in front of the commander, unit commander and everybody there, three people. They say, “Comrade Danon, you can tell us all. We know it. Now you better admit you were spying for the Germans.” He says, “Who me? Why would I help Germans with anything? I am Jewish, they’ll kill me immediately.” Says, “Comrade Danon, we know it all. No use trying to hide it.” And they kept questioning him, “What were you doing?” and this and that.
Later after about 4 hours of questioning they looked at each other, the three people and they said, “Okay. Get outta here.” Because they saw how silly it was that they accused him of this.
BILL BENSON:
So he then takes off and you followed.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, that’s when he took off, yeah. Then I got into Italy. I couldn’t find him or anything.
BILL BENSON:
You are 14 still.
ISAK DANON:
But this was the war. You grow up very young. One day I’m walking on the street. There is my father walking with some friends. “Hey. What are you doing here? How are you? When did you get here?” Anyway, so that’s in Italy. My father and I lived, started living together again and one day we heard about an invitation from the American government to come to United States. Well, this was a big thing. There were refugees all over Europe at that point and I guess United States didn’t allow anybody. United States had shut its doors to immigration at that time.
So, we were there wondering whether we want to sign up. United States was being pressured to bring some people because France says they would after the war they would take some and some other countries…okay so I guess Roosevelt and Congress agreed to have 1,000 people come to United States. This was still during the war. We haven’t invaded Europe yet. This is before D-Day.
Anyway, so we signed up, my father and I. Right before the time to go to United States, about 3 days before that, we heard that my mother and two sisters had come to Italy. They had come the same way that my father first did and I did, on one of these PT boats. Then we got started through the different sources and we started trying to reach each other and we got together and it was 3 days before we were ready to go to United States. For this 1,000 people there was many, many applications but now that they were there we had to decide what to do. There was no decision to be made actually. We said, “Either they have to come with us or we would just be pulled off from the list.”
Well they let them come on with, miracle of bureaucracy. In 3 days they were approved. And we started coming to United States. First, we all gathered. There were 1,000 refugees from all over Europe. We were in Italy at one point other people were coming from other points and we all gathered in Naples.
We got on one of the ships. This is the U.S. Army was going to take us. This one ship Henry Gibbons is the one that we got on. They put us at the bottom of the ship with hammocks. That was our sleeping quarter. We were waiting there for a few days because this was war time and they were waiting for a convoy to get organized and different ships, American ships, like merchant marine carrying wounded back to United States. They were there getting ready so then finally we started and in the Mediterranean Sea the military and the Navy came around and made like a wall around us. So we went through the Mediterranean. [It] took us two days. Then we crossed into Atlantic. On the way to the United States, but you didn’t take a direct route because there was a lot of German PT boats, the submarines and they were knocking out our ships in the Atlantic.
So this was a scary part of the trip. Twice while we were traveling we were attacked by German submarines. I remember the word from the captain of the ship came, “Everybody quiet.” Lights would go out then they would put this artificial fog and the destroyers that were taking us to the United States, they would go around and circle the convoy, make it look like a cloud. I am sure I have never seen this before but it would be choking you but at least you felt safe. They would shut the motors and everything. This happened twice during the 14 day trip from Italy to New York Harbor.
BILL BENSON:
That must have been just incredibly anxiety producing.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah, it was but I was a kid don’t forget and this was exciting for some of us. We would you know enjoy we were enjoying, we were playing games and all that. They would come up to see what’s going on and I guess there was the military police down you know. You had to…and they would cover everything. So, it was an interesting trip but we looked forward to coming to the United States.
BILL BENSON:
And tell us in the little remaining time we have, couple of things we’d like you to tell us about. One, what was it like when you first went to a refugee camp in New York at Lake Oswego. What was that like?
ISAK DANON:
Well there was two things. Before we got into the camp we had another most awesome, I am using this term, but it was awesome sight as we were approaching United States. You saw the Statue of Liberty over there in the distance. It was like about oh maybe 6 o’clock at night, 7 and the lights started coming out and the New York skyline and we…seeing all these boats you know it’s like New York it’s…I guess they had transportation from New Jersey to New York and it was an awesome sight. The bridge was all lit up and the cars, all different colored cars. We were used to seeing cars black. Any color but as long as it was black that was the policy over there. But here they had all different colors.
BILL BENSON:
It must have been a heck of a sight.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah that was really something and then they got us…oh and we arrived there and there was a big military band and they are playing, yeah. Oh we said, such welcome, who would imagine. Little did we understand it see the ship this Henry Gibbons was divided in two. On one end was 1,000 refugees and the other end was wounded soldiers that were coming home. The band…as the soldiers got off the band took off. He what happened we are still here. Well, anyway, this was pleasant, very pleasant. There was a lot of food by the way on the ship, yeah. And then they took us to these little things, little boats to train station, loaded us on trains, and we spent the night on the train, moving wherever it went. In the morning we woke up, we opened the train door and we see a lake, big lake and military barracks and they say, “Okay everybody out.” We go out there is a gate and we enter through the gate, barbed wire on both sides and they shut the gate.
What’s going on, you know? Most of us, some of us, were really scared that we walked into a trap or what happened here. But it took a long while to explain that this wire was put here for two reasons. First this was a military camp and they didn’t want any civilians coming in and out and second now that we are here they wanted us in there and they didn’t want the civilians still coming there or us coming out. This was still a wartime area. I mean wartime. The United States had just, the United States and its Allies had just invaded Europe and things were not going so good at the beginning and nobody knew which way it was going to end.
So eventually we got acclimated to living inside the wire, inside the fence. Later on they signed us up for school. I didn’t know a single word of English so they put me in a class where they thought maybe with the little kids I would learn something. They put me in 6th grade, 14 year old kid in 6th grade. Eventually, we learned English. We moved on. We stayed there for a hear and a half. We had all types of recreation. They gave us eventually passes, we could go into town but we had to sign out and then back sign in. This was supposed to be our temporary shelter until the war is over but the war wasn’t ending for a long time. We were just living there and marking time.
BILL BENSON:
Isak, we are about to we’re about to close in just a couple of moments but I do want you to tell us about your oldest sister because she didn’t come with you. She’d gone into the mountains with the partisans. Tell us what happened to her before we begin to close up our program.
ISAK DANON:
Okay, well she was in the partisans and she was in their fighting units and she got wounded in two different battles. Eventually, we made contact with her after the war and she was limping a little bit from the knee injury. She had a lot of stories to tell us about her, about her experiences. Eventually, we learned the story about my mother and the two sisters who had remained in Split when I and my father left. They were doing what if many of you have heard of Anne Frank. They were hiding in the basements and hiding in the fields where the people would have their crops and in the summertime they didn’t want to have to travel from home to the field that loses half an hour of daylight that they could be working, so they lived in the fields and my mother and two sisters they found one of these houses and they lived in there until somebody told them that it’s dangerous. And eventually they went when things were pretty rough there they went up in the mountains and they came the same, similar route as my father and I did. They came with a PT boat down to…
BILL BENSON:
Miraculous that you reunited with them.
ISAK DANON:
Yeah that was the most miraculous part was that we got reunited right before we were shipping to United States and what was happening there is that the British and Americans were trying to tell the Germans that they’re going to make an invasion of Europe through that area. That was…to prove their point this was like counter intelligence. To prove that point they invited people or they told people, “Get out of these areas.” And they took them to Italy, wherever they could and from there to Egypt. And that was like a big movement, you know. Like what they call underground railroad, That’s how we got to United…and my older sister, after the war she stayed there.
BILL BENSON:
She stayed.
ISAK DANON:
She never came to United States. I guess she could have but and she got sick and…
BILL BENSON:
Isak, we’re just about at the end. I am going to turn back to Isak in just a moment. I wish we had more time to hear a lot more detail not only about what Isak and his family experienced during the War, but after the War as well. Isak would go on as I mentioned earlier, get drafted, join the U.S. Army. But I have to share with you one kind of just funny story he told me. Do you remember in the beginning I said that he spoke like 6 languages.? So when he was in the U.S. Army one of those languages which he did not speak was French so they chose to send him to France as an interpreter. I had to chuckle when he told me that one.
I want to thank all of you for being here. I’d like to remind you that we will have a First Person program each Wednesday through the end of August and each Tuesday through the end of July. That the excerpts from this as well as the full discussion will be available on the Museum’s website and you can get the excerpts in the form of podcasts as well as through iTunes.
Our next First Person program is tomorrow, Wednesday, July 1st when our first person will be Mr. Julius Menn who was born in Poland. In 1935 Julius’ family emigrated from Poland to Palestine. In the summer of 1938 they went back to Poland for what was intended to be a short stay but ended up staying longer than they had expected and then war broke out in September, 1939 and they were trapped in Poland. However, they were able to flee eastward and would eventually make it back to Palestine in October, 1940. As a teenager Julius would serve in the Jewish military force, the Haganah and would later serve as an officer in the Israeli War of Independence. SO if you can come back tomorrow we’d love it but if not think about another First Person program this year or next year if you’re in the area.
It is our tradition at First Person that our first person has the last word and so with that I’d like to turn to Isak to close the program. We didn’t have time for questions from you. If you have a question or would just like to meet Isak, after the program ends he will step down off the stage here and please he’ll wait to answer your questions or just say hi to you. Isak…
ISAK DANON:
I just want to make another comment. One of the languages that you don’t have there is Spanish. This was my lucky language because after my first wife passed away I eventually I met a recent arrival from Latin America who didn’t speak English and after awhile with my Spanish I was lucky enough to get to marry her, so that’s my wife you met.
But, I had a comment before but what can one say about all this what took place in Europe. It was just hate that started it all. Hitler and his associates they hated the Jews, they got together with other people who were same haters they were, and they…once they got to power they put their power to evil use. It would be nice if we could say that today there is no more hate but unfortunately two or three weeks ago we saw that hate in action right here in this Museum. So, this is how it is and I hope it can change. We can all hope that’s all there is to it.
