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“I think my family saw them one time on the street, and they wouldn't even talk to them.”

Yvonne Powell tells her son, Gordon, about the Jewish family that lived downstairs from her in Germany, during World War II.

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Recorded in New York, NY

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Credits

Produced by Sarah Kramer.

Facilitated by Ian Koebner.

Transcript

Click here to read the transcript for this story.

Interview transcript

Yvonne Powell (YP): It was a family a husband, wife and also his brother. They took his brother away one time. And then they moved the whole family to a different building

Gordon Powell (GP): oh

YP: And that's when they had to wear those Yellow... Jewish.

GP: Stars of David

YP: The stars, yea. And um I think they saw them one time on the street and they wouldn't even talk to them. They were afraid and we never heard or saw anything, they all disappeared

GP: And did people know where they were disappearing to?

YP: Well we knew, we knew about concentration camps, but we didn't know how bad it was. We didn't know they killed millions of people, we knew there were terrible things going on, but everyone was afraid to say anything ya know?

GP: yea.