The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

1938 - Fateful Year

Until 1938 we lived peacefully with our Muslim and Christian neighbors, however, this year there was a turnaround. For the first time in my life, we began to feel antisemitism. First, a decree was issued that banned Jews, who were paying IRS beyond a certain threshold, to go to elementary school, and began to check into details every report on Jewish taxes, to make sure they are not state tax evaders. This did not touch us directly because our revenue was well below the set threshold, but we could sense the evil spirits are blowing around us. This year, as mentioned, the gun factory was inaugurated and the town was added about 3,000 people. In light of this and in light of the economic situation we rented a room to two of the employees. Every morning my mother used to bake Boikus for them - a kind of little buns. At that time we were forbidden to hold an assistant. Because one our assistant's job was to take care not only of family laundry but also that of our sub-tenants, and my mother was low and weak she had difficulty doing it, so the job fell on me. Once a week I would wash the tenants' clothes and change linen for them. These were American cotton sheets, which needed to be starched and ironed. In winter the temperature sometimes dropped to 20 degrees below zero. Once I hung the bedding to dry, they would cover ice and stick, and when I tried to take them down in the evening, I would find that impossible. If I stretched the fabric it was over-ripped sometimes, and I couldn't leave the laundry hanged on the night, that the fog or snow would cause it get wet again. The washing operation itself was not very difficult; Mum used to heat the water and I rubbed the laundry on top of a special board. But once I got them out of the water they were freezing, and with them my hands. It was hard, but I had no choice. The news we heard on the radio were not encouraging. I went twice to listen to them with my family, and in both cases, I got high temperature as a result of the fear that caught me. I had always hard response to scary news; even when they were tolling about a dog with rabid illness, walking around the area, I panicked and immediately brought a fever. As early as 1938, we heard on the radio what happened in Austria, the boots of the Nazi soldiers march in the streets. To this day when I hear that sound it frightens me and may even wake me up terrified in the middle of the night. My mother's condition was worse. Under the workload and mental and financial stress, my mother became depressed. She often cried and slept and at night she wandered off in the town, and my father, who cared for her, sent a detective and paid him to make sure she doesn't hurt herself. She always came home from her nightly wanderings. One night she came back and told us, that she had seen polar light in the sky and predicted the coming of the war. And the war indeed arrived.

Although in the past, Yugoslavia signed an agreement with the Germans, but eventually in March 1941, eighteen-year-old King Peter took to the streets accompanied by crowds and

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