Tag #139729 - Interview #78049 (Pavel Fried)

The first anti-Jewish incident that struck our family happened in the year 1940. They Aryanized my father's store. A German came to our place and pulled out a document that said that he was going to be the administrator of Father's hardware store. In practice it meant that he confiscated the store. Subsequently we had a visit from the Gestapo from Jihlava who proceeded to search our house. My sister was already married and lived with us along with her husband. I remember that during the search, when they were arresting my father, the Gestapo found some cans of food. The opened them and one of them had gone bad. It spurted its contents out onto a Gestapo officer's leather coat. My sister brought some after-shave lotion and cleaned his coat. They arrested my father and took him away to jail in Jihlava. There they presented him with a sales agreement that he was selling his store. Instead of the money they were supposed to pay him for it they sent him directly to Terezin. He was very lucky, because the Gestapo usually sent people from Jihlava directly to Auschwitz or executed them on the spot. After my father's arrest we associated only with Jews.