The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

together they cheer as one man: "Bolje Rat Nego Pakt!" - "War is better than a surrender agreement with the Germans!" On April 6, the war actually broke out. The Germans bombed Belgrade and continue to advance, when within a few days they conquer the whole country without difficulty, because Serbia was weak and the Croats, who wanted the German rule, quickly surrendered. The Germans were in Yugoslavia from April to July 1941, until the war began in the USSR, then the Germans went to Russia, and took with them, from among the Muslims, those who volunteered to fight alongside them. So we remained in July-August under the Ustasha, who became known for their murder and who sought every possible excuse to seize hostages, both from the Serbs and from among the Jews. In April 1941 a German officer (a doctor) and his assistant were staying at our house, without asking for permission. They lived in the two spare rooms in the house. Unlike their friends, who stayed in the town's hotel, they had a comfortable, clean bed and homely atmosphere, and when the officer was dining outside he used to bring us different food and desserts. Even my devout mother turned a blind eye and didn't check is the food Kosher. When I came across my friends on the street, they would cross the road to the other side and from there waved carefully, so no one will notice. My Russian friend completely cut off her relationship with me and refused to talk to me, probably out of fear. Unlike her, my Muslims friends said, "You were our friends in good times and you are friends in bad times too”, but I was afraid to socialize with them after I saw their five-year-old brother turn to a German convoy pointing at me, "Yoda, Yoda!" Fortunately, the German - he approached to - was our tenant, the same German officer who loved my parents very much and of course, who was aware of their Judaism, but this case made it clear to me that the same child absorbed a lot of hatred for the Jews at home and left me feeling hard. During this time, we were obliged to carry a yellow badge with a Star of David and on it the letter J, meaning Jevrej, a Jew. One day my father left the house wearing a coat and did not notice that the patch was covered. The Ustasha were also just waiting for the opportunity to punish the Jews, "Looking for a hair in the egg" as the saying goes, and they caught and detained him for this offense for about two months. The Jail was across the bridge on the Drina and I had to bring him food every a day. It was a scary march, as often I crossed the bridge under the exchange of shots between the Croatian Ustasha and the Chetnitk Serbs, who cooperated with the Germans (to distinct from the Serbs the partisans who fought them) and I struggled with fear by telling myself, my dad is waiting for me and I have to bring him food. In June, the Ustasha and Germans confiscated my father's shop and set on a Croatian loyalist. The goods were confiscated and not paid for. My sister, Cila, was playing with rifle pods she found, and when the Ustasha saw it, they went into the house, turned it over and scanned it to make sure we don't own weapons.

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