The War
Legal Papers for Palestine
have to sail on one of the illegal ships, which were often caught, and their passengers taken to detention camps in Cyprus or sent back to Europe. One day, we were picked up by trucks and taken to Poland’s border with Czechoslovakia, but we could not cross this border legally. The organization had arranged fake documents identify- ing us as the children of Greek refugees who were returning to Greece. We were told not to speak Polish or any other Slavic language. We could, however, speak Hebrew, which would sound like Greek to the Poles. The leaders also taught us a few Greek words, which I still remember. The Polish guards took their time looking over our papers, but let us pass through the border. I re- member their crude sexual remarks about the girls in our group. We understood what they were saying and had to force ourselves not to react, not to smile and not to laugh. We passed the border and, on the other side, boarded a train to Prague. Our appearance was relatively normal and our past experiences did not overtly affect how we looked or acted. We really did look like we could be the children of Greek refugees returning home. On the train, we overheard some of the passengers speaking Czech, a language similar enough to Polish for us to understand. They felt sorry for us and kept on making remarks like, “Oh, look at those poor children without parents.” Some of the other passengers gave us little gifts. I remember that one salesman, who apparently sold spools of thread, opened his little attache case and gave almost each and every one of us a spool of thread. God knows what he thought we were going to do with them, but we accepted them because it was much easier to smile than to say, “We don’t need it” in a language that would expose our identity. So we accepted the gifts, shook their hands, and said in Hebrew, “Todah,” which means “thank you.” They did not realize it was Hebrew. In Prague, some buildings were occupied by Jewish and Israeli organizations, such as the Joint Distribution Committee. We got identity cards from the Joint Distribution Committee and we no
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