Eva Grossmann, roz. Fromowitzová

“In 1936 my father wanted to leave for Brazil because his cousin lived there. He visited Hamburg that year and when he saw how they treated Jews there, he said that it was high-time to leave. Nobody believed him, of course. My mother said: ‘What harm would they do to a woman with two children?’ His brother said: ‘I’ve never done anything bad to anyone, why would they harm me?’ This went on up until 1939 when my father fled illegally, crossing the Danube, Black Sea, Turkey and reaching Israel. Naturally, we stayed behind. He had fled without us because it was the only remaining option. My mum was certain that they wouldn’t harm a mother of two like her.”

“In 1938 and 1939 it was still livable. Later, when they called up all Jews to transports, we were among them. But for some reason, perhaps since we were of mixed race, they let us out. We were not taken away. On the way home, our mum had said: ‘This won’t happen next time. We are not coming over next time.’ She had probably told everyone that we were in a concentration camp but in fact we stayed in the garden. I was in the garden from sunrise till sunset so that nobody would see us and recall that we exist. My sister stayed with grandpa. They didn’t want us to stay in one place because if they were to catch one of us, at least the other should have been spared.”

“You can’t imagine how scared one became when they came over and when I couldn’t leave… I was ordered not to leave the bed because the people down in the house mustn’t have known that I was there. When my mum was out, I stayed in the apartment alone. I had spent whole days on my own, not even allowed to use the toiled, forbidden from leaving the bed. There was some candy placed next to the bed which was supposed to paint my tongue red as a symptom of scarlet fever. But when they came over, knocking on the door, I forgot to eat them. I was paralyzed by fear.”