Non-Fraternization The German soldiers had strict orders not to fraternize with the civilians; nevertheless, this rule was not always observed. But parents were very stern with their daughters though a few of them were disobedient. One family had to hustle their daughter to another city. The shande (shame) was unheard of: the girl had become pregnant!
Actually the Germans had arranged to satisfy the sexual urge of their soldiers by establishing a brothel with imported girls. We avoided that house like the plague and to keep from passing it, we'd make a big detour. When these girls came to the ghetto to shop, the children would hide and stare at them from their retreat. Then it became whispered about that there was a Jewess among the girls, “a real beauty.” Yet this Jewess never came to the shops in the ghetto so we never saw her. But someone who did see her insisted that there was no mistake about it: she was Jewish! Such a disgrace -- it was unthinkable.
The older women especially would not believe that one of those girls could be a Jewess. They demanded a precise description of her. They haunted the person who had seen her:
“What color was her hair?”
“Was it curly?”
“Did you look at her eyes -- were they black?”
“Would you say that she had a Jewish nose?”
One elderly woman observed shrewdly: “A beautiful Yiddise Tochter (Jewish girl) would have a birth mark on her throat. Did she have such a mark?” she challenged. They all felt if the girl didn't have these traits, that proved that she wasn't a Jewess!
Editor's Notes: It must have been difficult to avoid by much any location in a town of only a few streets.
