• Contents
• Map
• Pictures
• Audio

Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

Okay. How did you hook up with other partisans or did you.. .

Okay. So that was summer in 1943, right? That was summer in 1943.

Spring.

Right, right. Uh, the Komarov um, it was called ??? the wholeunit, because they had smaller units. They were com. . . comprised out ofsmall groups of partisans. And the Komarov was the one that, that um, um,were, were in charge, that dealt with all of this. They, they were like theheadquarters.

This was Russian.

Russian, yeah, all, all Russian. Uh, so they had to transfersome um, some radio, you know, to, to another, to another Otriad—to anothergroup. And there was a, a, a man by the name of Misha. I don't remember his—hewas gentile. He was uh, an ex-pilot, a Russian pilot. He was shot down somewherein the, in this area. So he joined the partisans. So he took uh, a group ofabout ten, twelve people. There were two girls that were um, actually broughtfrom Russia and they were uh, uh, came by parachute into the forest. Theyused to bring some people in by—and they let them out in there at nightby parachute. These girls were um, they knew how to operate radios, you know,in the, in the, in the open. So they had, they had a lot of ammunition. Theyhad a lot of bullets with them. They had also dynamite. They had, they hadto transport it across a famous railway which runs between Luninets and, anduh, um, Baronovich. So they came and they knew, they knew that I am a formerpartisan, that I belonged to the big group of Kovpak, so they asked me, wouldI li. . . like to join the partisans again. And I said, "Yes," I grabbed theidea. So me, I didn't see uh, any hope in, in staying in the forest. I was,I was afraid that one day the, the Germans will kill us or whatever. Um, soI said, "Oh, yes." I grabbed the idea. So we all got ready. And I was wearinga radio on my shoulders. And I had bullets around my waist and I had a rifle.And we had to go through very uh, deep swamps. We had to carry the, the radioand the rifle up because we were up to the waist in swampy areas.

Where was it, just the Pinsk swamp?

That's the Pinsk swamps. So uh, and we had to go like about eightykilometers. So we—it took us like about two days and two nights. And,and they needed girls' help because they used to get—catch a pig somewherefrom the uh, or a calf from the um, local population. So we cooked dinnerfor them. So we were three girls and the rest of them were men, about ten,twelve.

Had you ever fired a rifle?

No, I didn't.

Now you're schlepping a rifle.

Now I'm schlepping the rifle. Uh, and as we were walking theretelling me they're going to reach a group and not far from them there's aJewish group, strictly Jewish, about 120. So I said, "Oh, that's a terrificidea. I'm going—and I. . . " and tell Misha this—the, the, the leaderof the group, he saw, he saw my worth because I was very handy. I was helping.I was carrying. He said no, he's going to keep me, I'm going with him to hisuh, group. I said, "No, you know what, Misha? I want to die among my own Jews.I, I don't trust you guys. And besides, I'm a girl. I'll have to sleep withthe men. I don't want to sleep with a gentile guy." [laughs] And I—it's,it's, it's not funny. It's painful. But that's—that was the, that wasthe life. So we came and we, we reached this Koganovich Otriad. And I said,"Goodbye, I am staying there." Near that—there were 120 Jews from twouh, small towns, from Lenin and from Pogots Zagorodskiy. Lenin and PogotsZagorodskiy. This is around the Pinsk area. They survived from um, um, laborcamp, a German labor camp. And um, they were mostly from that area. Therewere quite a few women. There were small children. There were old men. Andthey had—among them they had ten rifles and one rifle worked. The restof them were not work—not workable. So with this rifle, they were ableto go and secure themselves some food. They used to go up to a farmer andhe saw a rifle, he used—he had to give it to them. But what they triedto appeal to the, to the rest of the um, of the um, of the partisan ??? so-called,the—you know, the—their headquarters, that they are also an Otriad,they should also be provided with some ammunition. But you know, they wereall Jews and anti-Semitism still existed. And on, on top of it, there werealso uh, next to a group of partisans, the Vlasovists. The Vlasovists arethe equivalent to the Ukrainian Bulbasers. They are from the White Russia.

Fascists.

Fascists, yes. So uh, quite a lot of White Russians and evenUkrainians defected from the Russian army into the German. And these—therewere 300 of them. The majority of them were the ones that had defected. Andat one point they were in a fight with partisans and they saw that they arelosing, so they surrendered. They surrendered their weapons, they surrenderedeverything what they had. So they organized a, a group of partisans from them—outof them. So they—now they're on the partisan side. Understand? But, theywere terribly anti-Semitic. So they always used to do some things to, to,to damage their reputation. Anyway, we couldn't get any weapons. So the Jewishboy came on a, on a, a clever thought. They took—they cut down a treeand let—and they, and they chopped it up and they made like a um, triangleout of it, a long triangle. And they carried it on their shoulders for aboutten kilometers. And they came to the railways, to the rails. They attachedit to the rails. And the next day, one of the uh, um, one of the trains—it,it threw off a train from the railway. So now all of a sudden the Jews gota good reputation. They're fighters. They know what to do. So they suppliedthem with ammunition. They brought some dynamite. They brought some rifles.They brought some—after—aut. . . aut. . . automats, you know. Andokay, so this—I stayed in that, in that group at—they wanted toshow—not that they wanted to show, they, they were assigned uh, um, ajob to dynamite some, some railway for about uh, area of two kilometers. Theygrabbed the idea. And they had already weapons and they had dynamite. So theyorganized a group like about—we were about fifteen or twenty uh, partisans.And they took me as a nurse in case something happens to them, I should beable to do the, you know, give the first help. And we had our guide that knewthe area very well. He knew how to get to that railway and how to come back.So we, we reached the railway. It was a very damp night. It was very foggy.And, and we carried—each one had a piece of dynamite. It was like a pieceof soap with a, a wick attached to it. And that's all it had—they hadto attach it to the railway. And, and they had to light the wick. And that,that's how it blew up. So we came and it—there was already um, some other—theywere always fixing the railway in there. And who were fixing it? The Germans.They had their, you know, their, their communications organizations that Italked previously that Todt. . .