Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

GENERAL EISENHOWER CALLED HIM 14 7

׳THE GREATEST LIVING EXPERT ON SECURITY׳

in all he sent about forty men and women to the firing squad.

After World War I, Oreste said goodbye to the French and returned to Amsterdam. It was August 31, 1919, Queen Wilhelmina's birthday. And what a birthday it was. The first carefree day of national rejoicing after four years of continuous fears of invasion and scarcity of food. The streets of Amsterdam were a heaving sea of dancing, singing crowds.

Oreste strolled along and felt very happy but suddenly he became embroiled in a street fight. Some drunken sailors tried to get two women to join them in the street dancing. The women refused, and the sailors insisted and got angry.The women started shrieking...Oreste attacked, knocked one sailor unconscious, gave the second a kick in the shins, sent the third sprawling in the gutter, the fourth running away. The whole fight lasted no longer than a few minutes.

The two women thanked him profusely. They turned out to be British. Oreste did not say no when they asked him to see them safely to their hotel.

The next day, they invited him for lunch and he asked them whether they would like him to show them Amsterdam. Well, one thing led to another.. .Eventually, Oreste married one of them and the couple moved to a nice hotise in Blackpool.

I do not know what Oreste Pinto did between the two world wars. The only thing I know is that his marriage flopped and that he moved from Blackpool to London.