Tag #137145 - Interview #78082 (marietta smolkova)

We lived off our savings, and partly by selling things that we didn't need. I remember a large carpet, which due to its size not everyone could use. It was bought by one industrialist's widow, and we had an agreement with her that she'd officially transfer part of the money to a sealed bank account, which Jews had to have, and that the rest she'd give us in cash, which would have helped us very much, and would have hurt only the Germans. In reality we never got the remainder, and I'd be interested in knowing whether it laid on her conscience in any way. On the other hand, other people helped us very much, they hid our things for us so that we wouldn't have to give them to the Germans, and then after the war they came and returned them on their own initiative. Of course not everyone was like that, but they were to be found.