| Len's cousin
Visiting Germany before Hitler
M: You see, what really happened, our town, like, there you had an entirely [words inaudible] It was really, literally, the first victim of the Germans. You see, we lived on the border, on the East Prussian border of E Germany, East Prussia, actually. And the first thing was, the whole town lived out of the border trade. You see, it was a Polish-German border, and it was an open border, the same as between Canada and the United States. And most of the people, like my father, had a partnership with Germans. My father and other Jews, and also Poles, actually, from Poland, had a partnership with German people across the border. And they used to bring stuff, an international trade. And, of course, some was legal, some was illegal, but everybody made a living. As a matter of fact, the whole town was considered well off in those days.
As soon as Hitler came to power, the border closed. So, in other words, right in.. as a matter of fact in 1932, in 1933, the town got cut off from their source of income, and overnight, the whole town became poor. So that was the first thing that happened to us. All of a sudden we were all poor.
His name was Jonas, sure. He was a partner with my father, sure. But he came in and he was friendly. He was actually a friend of ours. I remember them from home yet. He used to be in our home all the time, yet. I loved to see the way he used to guzzle beer, you know. That guy could drink beer like a fish, and as kids, we used to go every holiday, especially Chal HaMed you know, Chal HaMed Pesach and Chal HaMed Sukkoth, we used to go to Germany.
Father used to take the wagon with the horses, and with the kids. We used to go to Germany, sure. We used to be there for a day or two, and we used to come there. As a matter of fact, he had a little girl who was the same age as mine. And the first thing was, when I used to come, they used to tell the girl, that fellow, that your groom came, and they were both crying. Kids, you know!
And I remember, just as now, we were both crying, why I am the groom and she is the bride. We didn't want to be a groom and a bride. As kids, you know. And that was the first thing that brought tears to our eyes.
And one day I remember, we came, like we had to cross a border, you know, but the border was a free border. So I came, and the border guard took my hand and he went and stamped my hand, and said, "If you rub out this stamp, you can't go back. This stamp will let you come back home."
Fine. And we went out. We came to the German home, and, of course when we used to come, right away they used to make for us coffee, and, you know, we used to bring our own food when we used to go there. And Chol HaMed Pesach especially, I remember just as now, we always used to take boiled eggs. Well, the eggs and matzah, and we had potato kugel.
And I remember just as now, when you go into a German house, and won't go to eat before you wash your hands, you know. So, we had to go wash our hands, and not realizing, I washed out the stamp.
On our way back, all of a sudden it dawned on me. I was a kid, you know, but all of a sudden it dawned on me that I haven't got the stamp. And I started to cry, that they won't let me go home, because I got no stamp. Of course, I didn't realize that by the time I came back that there was a change in the border guard. It was [wasn't? Tape unclear] but as a kid I had no way to know that.
But when I came, it was another border guard, but I kept on looking at my hand. And the border guard said, he thought it was something wrong with my hand. He said, "What happened?" He asked my father, "Does he need any help?" And my father didn't know, like, what I am looking at.
And then I started to cry again. "I can't go home." He says, "Why can't you go home?" I said, "Because I haven't got the stamp." And father remembered, that the guy stamped them.
So anyway, though, of course he calmed me down and said, "You could go home. Don't worry about it." And every time that we used to come home, we used to bring a whole sackful of stuff from there. Nuts, candy like for kids you know food, things that at home were scarce. And there, it was in abundance.
And we used to have for months, sweets and stuff, and candy, and everything from Germany. But as kids, we always used to go there.
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