My parents then decided immediately to flee, together with grandma Spiero. They had bought false papers for 1000 guilders, by which they would like to go Switzerland. The day before depart the supplier came down to collect the documents for a correction. We never saw the papers nor the man again.
Because time was running out, it was improvising. The cleaning lady offered her house in the Atjehstraat as a hiding place. When we sat there, we found out that her husband was a member of the NSB. This in itself would not have been such a problem, because they were only interested in money. He was busy looting homes of deported Jews. But the neighbours raised the alarm when they saw truck after truck unloading stuff. The alerted police found him, but also us.
So we were arrested by the Amsterdam police and taken to a cell in the Detention House on Marnixstraat. The premium for bringing in a Jewish family was a pound of eel. “I hope you choke on it”, was my mothers response. I don’t know how long we’ve been there. I still have a vague image of my father and mother in that cell. From there we were taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg and I to the opposite nursery (crèche). Sieny Kattenburg worked in the crèche and remembered me well in later years. She was the daughter of Berthe Rueff and Jonas Kattenburg and a niece of my grandmother Mathilde Rueff, who had married my grandfather Abraham Munnikendam.
On the day of deportation, I became ill. Double ear infection, 40° fever. My mother said that I could not travel in that condition, and heard Aus der Fünten say: “ob er nun hier stirbt oder dort” (whether he died there or here) and then she decided with the help of the friendly doctor Dr. Bert de Vries Robles to flee. I was wrapped in a blanket and in the confusion there was a taxi from the crèche that took us to the Haarlemmermeerstraat. She never saw my father again.
Back in the Haarlemmermeerstaat, my poor grandma Spiero sat there all alone. She was too tired to go with us in hiding. My mother, who never lost her presence of mind, now decided to make use of het baptismal paper. Why that had not happened before and why the Germans took it then? No idea. In any case, for her plan to work, I also had to be baptized. A minister of the Protestant Reformed Church came down (also for 1000 guilders) and after the usual rituals, I suddenly was a christian. A few days later, when the minister wanted to find out about our salvation, I crawled under the table. “I don’t like baptism” I must have said,
Grandma Spier was picked up a bit later by indeed the Amsterdam police. My mother then attacked the police . She later said that this was the worst moment in her life. We were then arrested and arrived for the second time in the Hollandsche Schouwburg and I in the crèche. Then: Westerbork and Theresienstadt.