Kindergarten

SW: They outlawed school for the Jewish people, and that’s when— talking about education, that’s when the Jewish people, on the sly, started having schools in private homes.

We had a sort of—I guess now it’d be what you call a family room or playroom that was facing the street. They blacked out the windows, and I remember that early in the morning, somebody who was a teacher would sort of sneak into the house; and then, later on, as time went by, kids would come in one by one. I understood then that it was a kindergarten class. And the same, from what I later on found out, happened in literally tens and tens of other homes.

Of course, they had the Jewish police and the Jewish Judenräte, which was the commissioners. I think they knew about it, but they just pretended like they didn’t. As far as the Germans were concerned, it didn’t exist; or maybe they also knew, but it wasn’t something that they wanted to make an issue.