Tag #120663 - Interview #88272 (Josip Papo)

While I was still studying in Split, the Communist Party bought me Italian identity papers. The false papers enabled me to move around freely. On Rab, there was a real concentration camp, with wires, towers and barracks. There were two camps, Brac and Dubrovnik, which were separated by wires. Dubrovnik had brick barracks and we had wooden ones. When we arrived, they gave us jackets with black boxes, so it was known we were Jews. On the other side of the island, there was a camp with Slovenians. In the camp they did not mistreat us; we even organized ourselves and had our own police. There were three groups of us, one went out during the days on reconnaissance, and the other two groups at night. Every hour we went to the fence of the Dubrovnik camp and lit a match as a sign of peace.

With me in my group was Mimo Atijas. Our friendship lasted 50 years. I was the best man at his wedding. Once we stole a typewriter from the clinic and when there was a shift change among the carabineers, we moved it from one barrack to another. Ernest-Simko Spicer, a writer from whom we sought advice on everything, and his wife were with us, too. The Italians even took us swimming, and in the Dubrovnik camp there was a school where one could hear lectures. This lasted until September, the time of the Italian capitulation, when we along with the Slovenians took control of the camp. We were in the camp another 10 days. We were well organized. I was in charge of the hospital. We started to leave – some went to the partisans, some remained on Rab and were captured by the Germans. I was very weak and unable to walk. I found the secretary of the Federation of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia and remained in the Committee until the end of 1943, when a decision was made that I go to Istra.