Tel Aviv, 2016
It was cold, there was no proper food, even though my mother took special portions because of the baby.
So, I was born in Thessaloniki in 1939. My parents were Benjamin and Evelyn Vida. In 1943 we were deported from Greece. We were sent to Bergen-Belsen. The Spanish government saved us and allowed us to cross into Spain. Although at home we spoke Ladino, I spoke it only with my parents and after my mother died, I never spoke Ladino again, so I have forgotten it a bit. I have been living in Israel since 1944; I have two children and six grandchildren.
My sister Varda was born on the day we were deported from Greece. She was born in Baron Hirsch, the ghetto of the Thessaloniki Jews. Afterwards she made the whole journey as a baby. One could say that the Germans almost spoiled her a little, even in a concentration camp like Bergen-Belsen, since they gave her richer food so that she could… [survive], as she was just a baby. Because, really, at the camp they treated us… since we were protégés of Franco, they treated us in the way that no Jew was ever treated. Even though living inside a camp was not pleasant in any way.
It was cold, there was no proper food, even though my mother took special portions because of the baby. In general, there was no food. And afterwards, you develop this trauma, never throw away bread, never throw away any food and all that.