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Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998

This partisan who was shot. . .

Yes.

because his wife had a baby. . .

Right.

Is there more to that story? What happened to the baby andwhat happened to and what happened to the wife?

Oh, that, that's a very famous story. The baby was born. I stoodwhen she was born, a, a little girl. And when she was, when she was six weeksold, her mother found out that they didn't tell her the truth that he wasshot. They told her that he went on a, on a sort of a mission and he'll be,he'll be back. But she saw weeks go by and he doesn't come back. At one timeshe spotted a soldier wearing his jacket. So she surmised that he is not alive.And and it happened in uh, probably in May. We had to—all of a suddenthere was a, a there was a—um, uh, they, they came to tell us that, thatthe Germans are, are uh, coming to fight, so they had to abandon that place.And it was—so we, we were all—it was a very uh, dark night. Andit was still—it wasn't the, the, the, the ground was still half frozen,half wet. And we were, we were—it was so dark that we had to hold onto each other not to lose each other. So—and, and they, they took thebaby. They gave her some uh, uh, homemade vodka, a little bit, she shouldsleep. But in the middle of our journey, she started crying. So they decided—andthe echo in the forest goes a long way. And the Germans were—surrounded—werearound us, they surrounded us. So they came to Sarah, my girlfriend. Theysaid, "Sarah, you have to give up the baby otherwise the whole 120 peopleare in jeopardy." "How about," she says—that was—when we were stillin the Jewish group. She said, "How does, how does a mother give up a child?"So she was giving it, taking it back and giving it, finally she gave up thechild—she gave them the child. And two Jewish boys took the child. Andthey brought her—they didn't kill the child, they, they took her to afarmer and they said, this is a baby from a partisan. You better take goodcare of that baby, otherwise, you'll pay with your life. And a couple dayslater Germans came into the village and uh, the population had to run outbecause they were afraid of being killed. And this woman left the house andshe left the baby in the house. She was sure she'll come back and the babywould be killed. She came back. There was a, a little bag of sugar in a redr. . . ribbon next to the baby. A German probably that had left this babyin the house, he had pity, he left something for the baby. The next time whenthe Germans attacked was about a week later, she already grabbed the babyand started dressing it, but she was late and as she was running out of thehouse a German uh, uh, caught her. But he had pity on her because she hadthe baby. So she knew that thanks to the baby, she, she survived.

So the baby also survived?

The b. . . baby survived. After we were liberated she came—shewouldn't give her up. Don't ask what she had to go through. She had to takeher to court. The, the woman claimed that it's her baby. She raised her andshe went through a lot with her and she's not giving her up. But she had togo to court and she took some—um, took some money to get the baby outof there.