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After a month we went by bus to Athens. We never saw the trains taking away the Jews from Thessaloniki. I was traveling with my brother Alberto and a man who escorted us. On the bus was Mrs. Pardo with her daughter and her grandson. She said to me: ‘y tu sos Judia?’ [Judeo-Spanish: you are also a Jewess?]. I was scared. I pretended that I didn’t understand the language she was talking to me.
On the bus my brother Alberto sat in the front while I was in the back. The driver stopped the bus at Ekaterini [or Katerini: capital of the district of Pella, 30 km from Thessaloniki] and we got out. The driver asked me if I was related to the man, pointing at my brother Alberto, who was sitting in the front. I answered that I didn’t know him. The man that was escorting us to Athens had told us not to reveal that we were siblings.
Then the driver went to my brother and asked him if he knew me, and my brother’s answer was negative, too. Furious, the driver said that I couldn’t continue the trip with them. I started crying although this was a chance for me to go back again to my mother, since I had regretted being separated from her.
But my brother Albertos was reluctant to leave me alone. Everybody in the bus was upset. One man stepped forward. He claimed to be chief commander from the ‘mountain,’ from Andartiko [23]. He threatened the driver that in case he didn’t take us both he would betray him to the resistance. The driver didn’t say anything else after that and we continued our trip to Athens.
On the bus my brother Alberto sat in the front while I was in the back. The driver stopped the bus at Ekaterini [or Katerini: capital of the district of Pella, 30 km from Thessaloniki] and we got out. The driver asked me if I was related to the man, pointing at my brother Alberto, who was sitting in the front. I answered that I didn’t know him. The man that was escorting us to Athens had told us not to reveal that we were siblings.
Then the driver went to my brother and asked him if he knew me, and my brother’s answer was negative, too. Furious, the driver said that I couldn’t continue the trip with them. I started crying although this was a chance for me to go back again to my mother, since I had regretted being separated from her.
But my brother Albertos was reluctant to leave me alone. Everybody in the bus was upset. One man stepped forward. He claimed to be chief commander from the ‘mountain,’ from Andartiko [23]. He threatened the driver that in case he didn’t take us both he would betray him to the resistance. The driver didn’t say anything else after that and we continued our trip to Athens.
Period
Interview
Mirou-Mairy Angel