Going Underground

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"The reason he went underground and disappeared was basically after they were blowing up one of the supply trains, and they were running away from the rail yard, jumping over the fences. He was shot in the back of the knee, but couldn’t go to the emergency room because he couldn’t walk in there with German bullet. Wouldn’t look so good. That was a pretty close call.

He ran. Adrenaline. Yeah. [He made it to my grandparents' house.]

Well, he healed. That was good. He was still good at running. That helps.

Probably in 1944 they must have really known at that point that he was a resistance fighter, because his name must have been on a list, and they came up the front steps, and my dad went up the kitchen steps, all the way to the top of the attic, got out the window, and leapt over to the other building, and slid down the window there. And he mingled in the crowd instead of running away, ’cause then they would have known. But when we talk to the students about bystanders, he had thousands of bystanders all curious, now. 'Who are they arresting today?' So my dad went over and said, 'Who are they arresting today?' Just to pretend that 'Oh, yeah. Couldn’t be me if I’m down here, right?'

They didn’t know where he went, and my grandfather turned white-haired overnight because he didn’t know.

He went to the underground resistance headquarters. He got new passport, new ID, and new name."