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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

And you were the only one now left in the village?

And I am the only one. But I don't know. I am lying in the house.But I walked out in the street and it's strange. I saw uh, a, a man and he,he was talking to me. And there are a couple of partisans standing. And Iwalk a little bit and then I became terribly cold and I ran back to the house.And I lied there on the oven, it was warm. And then all of a sudden aboutone o'clock during the day, I see German tanks with German soldiers. So Iran out in the—and, and I grabbed a ladder and I went on to the attic.And I—across the street, that was the headquarters of the partisans.They had pictures of Stalin and Lenin. And I saw Germans running in and shooting,shooting at the pictures. And I became—again, I became cold. And I thoughtto myself, I don't care. I mean I knew that I—that some—that theGermans are going to do something to me. But um, death didn't mean m. . .anything. I, I can't explain it. So I went down and I went again on the ovenand uh, I laid down. About an hour later there was a whole caravan of um,horses and buggies and also tanks. So they, they told them to stop and theydispersed them, each, each um, horse and buggy to a different house. And one—anda group of Germans with a horse and buggy came in to this house. And theycame in, in and with a rifle and they saw me. And they, they said to me—onething subconsciously um, I knew that I can—I don't understand German.I understood, but I can't understand German. So they asked me, "Who are you?"And I said in Polish, "I am, I am Polish. I am Polish." And what—andI said, "See, I'm sick." I spoke Polish and I said to them, "I'm sick." Sothey said, "Okay. Come down, come down." And they saw some hay. And they said,"There were partisans here?" And I said, "I don't know anything." They toldme to clean the house and they said, this is where they're going to stay forthe night. I should prepare—we'll start preparing some food. And theystarted—tried to start making a fire. And one German calls me and said,"You come and show me where you hid your silver." I said, I, I said, "I don'tunderstand. What are you talking about?" He started getting real angry. Andhe said, "You know. You come here. Don't tell me. . . " in German. He says,"You come and show me." And if it would have lasted another five minutes,he would have shot me, he was so angry. But all of a sudden they got an order,they have to move. So they moved. And they—the caravan was going—theyhad to accommodate more, more uh, um, groups of Germans you know, into thehouses. And, and I went back on the oven. And about a half an hour later,the same, the same thing happened. They came, they came into the house withthe rifle and started asking me. Then they said, "You come down and, and we'regoing to have our dinner here." So I made a fire and they took out eggs andthey had hard cheeses and they had salami and they had bread. And I made um,scrambled eggs for them. And uh, I cooked some water and they had some teawith them. And they, they sat down to eat. So they asked me if I would jointhem at the table. Yeah, I joined them. And they gave me everything, whateverthey had. And the conversation between them went on, like one asked the other,"Who do you think she is? What, what nationality is she?"

Did you understood German?

Yes, I do. I lived in Germany for. . .

Did they know that you understood?

No, no, no.

So you didn't tell them?

No. I, I understood what they were talking. But you see, my brainwasn't working, but it was working enough to, to know that I cannot understandGerman. You understand? Anyway, so they said uh, so they shrugged their shouldersand they said, "I don't know— we don't know." I mean—so then theyfinished eating. And they said to me—they showed me in sign languagethat you can't sleep here. They're going to sleep there and you can't. Sotwo soldiers, one with a rifle in front of me, one with a rifle in the backof me and I think they told me to come, to go with them. And I think to myself,oh, I bet they're going to shoot me. That's what I—that's the way I thought.And they took me to a. . . another empty house and they said, "That's whereyou're going to stay." I—at that point I became—I w. . . was veryfrightened. But they left the house and I didn't even close the door. AndI went back on the oven. And that night was—they, they were constantlyshooting. The Germans were constantly shooting because they were afraid ofthe, of the, of the partisans that were around. They also had to land someairplanes because some of their um, um, soldiers were killed, when they were—themines exploded on the roads. So they had to land airplanes to take them orsmall planes, you know, to take them back. And they had the—they wereshooting flares, you know, to light up the area. And it was terribly noisy.And with that noise, I fell asleep. I fell asleep. And I—when I openedmy eyes, there was a complete quiet. I walked out of the house and I wentinto the house where they had dinner and I found a toothbrush and I founda piece of bread and some salt. So I put the salt and the toothbrush in mypocket and also matches. And I put that in my pocket. I had a premonitionthat I'll be able to use them. And I'm walking around, there is nobody. The,the village is completely empty. There were cats and dogs and chickens andcows and, and everything was roaming in the streets, but no people. What happened,this was the regular army. This was the Wehrmacht. They came into the villageand they were chasing, they were chasing the partisans, but as they were movingalong, they, they, they encountered the inhabitants of the village who werehiding in the forest and they asked them, "Why are you hiding?" I mean, "We'renot after you. You should go back to your uh, homes. We are not, we are nothere to kill you. We are chasing the partisans." So they started coming intothe village. And I'm sitting in the house and here comes in the, the ladyof the house. And she's, she crossed herself. She said, "What are—whoare you, what,"—I, I was known in that village. There was a—theycalled me, they called me the crazy Jewess, you know. That—"Oh, the crazyJewess, what are you doing here?" So I said, "Here I am." So she ran out tothe neighbors. And they all came looking like it ah, it's something that is,it's a miracle. There in that, that night, there were about five older womensick and one man, they killed them all, that left, that were left in the village.