- Fear:
In "bunkers" (hiding places within ghettoes) the imminency of Nazi capture was very great. Jews hid in their hiding places when they were ordered for deportation. Nazis would go from house to house in search of any Jews that were hiding. The Nazis looked in each house, looked for fake doors, fake walls, mats covering an opening. These hiding places weren't really hidden, because they were assumed to be there. Would the Nazis find them? The people in a hiding place could hear the footsteps of the Nazis, right above them, right next to them. Everyone would be holding their breath, even the children. But what if there was a baby in there too? Babies, though completely innocent, did not understand the seriousness of the situation and could not be kept from crying. Young mothers were often forced to make a decision.
When we got to the loft, we found it crowded and the people very tense. There was one young woman trying to comfort an infant who was crying. It was just a tiny baby, but he wouldn't go to sleep, and she couldn't stop him from crying. Finally she was given a choice by the other adults: Take your crying baby and leave -- or kill the infant. She smothered it. I don't remember if the mother cried, but you didn't have the luxury of weeping. Life was so precious and so cheap at the same time. You did what you could to save yourself. 2
---Kim Fendrick, six years old when went into hiding - Food and Water:
Though the families brought some food and provisions with them, no family was prepared to stay in hiding for several years. They soon ran out of food and water. As a person who is not supposed to exist, it was difficult to get additional food since most people were on rations. Some families would send one member out at night in the hopes of catching something. Fetching fresh water was also not easy since that meant leaving their hiding place without being seen.
Some people couldn't take the stench and the darkness, so they left, but ten of us remained in that sewer - for fourteen months! During that time we never went outside or saw daylight. We lived with webs and moss hanging on the wall. The river not only smelled terrible, but also it was full of diseases. We got dysentery, and I remember Pavel and I were sick with unrelenting diarrhea. There was only enough clean water for each of us to have half a cup a day. My parents didn't even drink theirs; they gave it to Pavel and me so that we wouldn't die from dehydration. 3
Lack of water became a problem for other reasons too. With no access to a regular supply of water, there was no water to bathe in. Opportunities to wash ones' clothes became few and far between. Lice and diseases were rampant.
---Dr. Kristine KerenEven though I wasn't eating much, I was being eaten unbelievably. The lice down there were very bold. They would walk out onto my face. Everywhere I put my hand, there was another one. Fortunately Rosia had a pair of scissors an cut off all my hair. There were body lice too. They would lay eggs in the seams of our clothing. For the whole six or seven months I was down there in the hole, the only real fun I had was cracking the nits with my thumbnail. It was the only way in which I had even the slightest control over what was going on in my life. 4
---Lola Kaufman, seven years old when went into hiding - Sickness and Death:
Being completely secluded also had many other problems. If someone got sick, they could not be taken to a doctor, nor could one be brought to them. Children suffered through many maladies that could have been tempered if not controlled by contemporary medicine. But what happened if someone did not survive the illness? If you did not exist, then how could there be a body?
One year after Selma Goldstein and her parents went into hiding, her father died. "The problem was how to get him out of the house," Goldstein recalled. The people next door and the family across the road were Dutch Nazis. "So my father was sewn into a bed and the neighbors were told that the bed had to be cleaned. The bed was carried out of the house with my father in it. Then it was brought to a country estate out of town where a good policeman stood guard while my father was buried." For Goldstein, the normal process of mourning the death of her father was replaced by the horrible dilemma of how to get rid of his body.5
- Arrest and Deportation:
Though daily life and the problems they encountered were difficult to deal with, the real fear was being found. Sometimes the owners of the house they were staying in would be arrested. Sometimes there was information passed that their hiding place was known; thus, the need to evacuate immediately. Because of these situations, Jews often moved hiding places relatively frequently. Sometimes, though, as with Anne Frank and her family, the Nazis discovered the hiding place - and they were not warned. When discovered, adults and children were deported to the camps.
