When the Nazi soldiers banged on their apartment door, demanding to be let in, PieterKohnstam's mother slipped him a small piece of paper.
There was no protocol. No training. No planof what to do in a situation like that.
Especially not for a 6-year-old boy.
Quick-thinkinglittle Pieter snuck the paper into his mouth and swallowed it. The Nazi soldiers, busy claiming the Jewish family's furniture as their property, never noticed.
Had they discovered thepaper slip — covered with phone numbers, including that of Gerda Leske, a family friend who would later help the Kohnstams flee Amsterdam —the consequences would have been dire.
"If the Germans would have seen that, they would have taken two or three names, including Gerda Leske, and killed them, as well as us," Kohnstam, now 82, told the scores assembled at the Collier County Public Library on Orange Blossom Drive in North Naples on Wednesday.
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During the 1½ hour-long event, put on by the library, The Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida and Kohnstam, he detailed his family's treacherous escape from Nazi-occupied Europeto South America.
Kohnstam's parents,Hans and Ruth, first arrived in Amsterdam in 1933. He an artist, she a teacher, they had to flee Nuremberg, Germany, because the Nazis declared a painting of his to be "degenerate."
"And what was degenerate about it?" Kohnstam said. "It was androgynous."
Kohnstam was born in Amsterdam on June 18, 1936. A few stories above their ground-floor apartment lived a girl who would often play with young Pieter.
Her name was Anne Frank.
When Kohnstam got a new blue scooter, the two went to play with it in the park one day. After a "bad maneuver," the two fell to the ground, Kohnstam recalled.
"I cut up my chin and after all these 80-something years, I have a souvenir from Anne Frank... above my chin," he said to chuckles from the crowd.
For Anne Frank's birthday, Kohnstam's mother suggested to the girl's mother that she should get her a diary, Kohnstam said. At night the two families often played bridge in the Franks' apartment.
But as the influence and reach of the Third Reich grew, Amsterdam became an increasingly dangerous place for the Kohnstams. The Nazis sowed fear and distrust among the city's residents and terrorized the Jewish population.
"This was more than a discrimination, this was a separation," Kohnstam said. "And to some of the Germans, a license to club, demean and kill on the spot. These are things that I witnessed and lived through for many years."
Soon after the German soldiers had entered the Kohnstams' apartment, the family decided it was time to flee for good. In July 1942, the family began its tumultuous year-long journey from the Netherlands to Argentina.
With the help of Leske, the Kohnstams boarded a train toMaastricht, a city on the Belgium border.
Leske and her husband owned a dress store in Maastricht and, under the guise of going to a fashion show, she and the Kohnstams headed there. Ruth Kohnstam would travel as the model. Her husband, Hans, as the fashion designer. And Pieter Kohnstam would pretend to be Leske's son.
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The Kohnstams made it to Maastrich and crossed the border into Belgium the next day. From there, they traveled to Antwerp, Belgium, and then to Paris.
The Kohnstams continued their journey through France, aiming for the Cher River to cross into the unoccupied southern portion of the country.
With the help of a fisherman, the family — careful not to alert nearby German soldiers — managed to row across the river early one morning.
"The dogs would bark ... but the shooting didn't hit us," Kohnstam said.
Others were not so fortunate. An older couple who tried to cross before the Kohnstams drowned, he said.
To be sure, there were plenty of close calls for the Kohnstams, too.
Once, while in France, Pieter Kohnstam had to hide from two German soldiersin an outhouse for half an hour, covered in feces.
"To this day I don't know how the hell I did it," he said.
When the family, which always split up into two groups whenever they crossed borders, traveled from France into Spain disguised as railroad workers, Ruth Kohnstam was apprehended and sent to a women's detention camp in Spain.
After a few months at the camp, the British Consulate visited and needed a translator. Ruth Kohnstam, who spoke 11 languages, volunteered. It was her ticket out of the camp.
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When the family arrived in Barcelona, the police chief arranged a meeting with the bishop, Kohnstam said. With the bishop's help, the Kohnstams were able to get the certificates of baptism needed to emigrate to Argentina, where Ruth Kohnstam had an uncle. They arrived there in July 1943.
Kohnstamis now retired and lives with his wife, Susan, on the Gulf Coast in Venice. He drew parallels Wednesday between his own harrowing escape and the experiences of those seeking refuge in today's world.
"So how do I feel about people who are forced to flee?" he said. "Children from the Middle East. Turkey. Central America. Asia.
"Am I any different?"
