Miriam Abeles

“It had consequences, of course. Six or seven men came there, they were not the guard members, but Germans who came to arrest me. One of the nuns knew that they were coming, she saw them enter the courtyard, and she grabbed me and she hid me under her robe, she hid me there and she kept my mouth covered. I understood what was going on, but I didn’t know exactly why she was doing it – why would they want to arrest me, when I was in a good place? They hid me. They tied me with a rope above a well so that I could see the water under me and my reflection in it. (They hid you in a well?) They hid me in a well, and the way they did it was that they tied me above the well, and I don’t know for how long I was there. Maybe only one day, maybe more. I don’t remember it, I was terribly afraid.”

“Aunt was looking for a way to get rid of me. She learnt that there were movements which took children to Israel. One of the movements was Hashomer Hatzair, and there was Maccabi Hatzair, and the others were Mizrachi, they were religious. Aunt was anxious to send me with the transport which would leave first. I said: ‘Fine.’ Aunt asked me if I wanted to go to a summer camp. ‘Of course I want to go to a summer camp.’ I only wanted to get out of there. It was quite difficult there, although I actually spent quite a lot of time with my male cousin. He would tell me: ‘Keep your mouth shut, don’t say anything, we will be here for as long as you can stay here, and then we will go together to Israel.”

“I didn’t care whether I was a Zionist or not. I wanted to go where my boyfriend would go, I was not interested in Zionism. I knew that I was a Jewish again and that I had to go there with my people. When we went to Israel, I was happy that I was going as well. And so I got here. I was not attracted by idealism, only by knowing that I wanted to live among Jews.”