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She told me not to sleep at home at night.
So I picked myself up and went where she told me to go.
That night we walked to a cigarette and stamp store.
To a handicapped man, recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, he truly deserved it.
I, Adela, Esterja Ovadja, we were the first three.
Later, two more joined us.
It was very dangerous.
The place where we were hiding was two meters away from the police station.
They would come to talk to him-
not the policemen, but the detectives.
They would say, “Hi! How are you?” and we would stay silent and hidden.
One day he came early in the morning to give us some bread.
I have no idea where he got it from.
A piece of bread that we would split amongst ourselves and some water.
We needed air. It was very stuffy.
It was this kind of passage, like a storage room.
In the floor was an opening where you could go down even further.
That is where we went to the bathroom, 5 or 6 people.
We sat crouched inside.
One morning, there’s a knock on the door:
“Good morning. What is that smell? It’s as if you’re hiding Jews in here!”
Not knowing that he really was. He hit it dead on.
We had made a small hole in the door.
He comes to the door, to the hole, to see what is going on.
He came to try to open the door.
He was on crutches because he was handicapped.
He hit the door with his crutches.
He said to him: “What are you searching for by me! This is a business!”
“I didn’t mean to insult you, I was just curious.”
He told him you don’t have permission to do this.
After this, we immediately said to him:
"Either you go to Angela, our contact person,
"and get us a hand grenade and we’ll blow ourselves up right here,
"or you get us out of here right now.”
He said, “Be ready tonight, because you’re leaving here.”