On the Tuesday morning – that’s four or five days after the invasion of Holland – which was on the Friday morning. On the Tuesday morning my cousin, Gershon, who was living with us, comes back from having been somewhere, right? We didn’t know where. And he comes in, at noon, to the house and there were several fellow …Jews who had accumulated. What do we do, etc, etc.? And Gershon comes in and says, “I have one way of getting out of Holland. And it’s as follows: There is one ship, leaving IJmuiden which is the harbour of Amsterdam; it’s on the North Sea. It’s leaving this evening. It’s now twelve o’clock. And you’ve got to get- If you want to do this, you have to leave everything you’ve got. There will be no suitcases, because we are going by bus. There will be half a dozen buses organised from the Jewish Community Centre, which are going to Ijmuiden, to a boat which will take us… we don’t know where. Destination unknown. Now, are you interested in going there?” And this was a new situation. There was a scheme! There was a plan, which we didn’t have before. And I do remember the discussions which went on. And first they said, there were several men there and they said, “Well maybe the men ought to go and leave the women behind.” Because they were… And then others said, “Well maybe we shouldn’t go at all. And then others again said, our family said, said, “We would be quite willing to go.” And I am, I believe that I was, because my father also thought, should only he and my brother Maurice go, and that I would stay behind with the family, with the rest of the family. And I understand that I made a big fuss, but I don’t remember it. And I said, “Oh, no, no. We’re all going, or we’re not going. There’s no splitting up of the family.” And that was agreed. So the family went.
