Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Then I decided to go to the mayor, was uh, temporary from, they put up in that time, in Lithuania, to ask him if I can stay because the front is going. I come to that mayor, and I said in Lithuanian, like, hello. Yes, mm-hm. And then he asked me what I wanted. I told him maybe he can--in Lithuanian--then I told him maybe you can speak Polish or German or Russian. I said, "It's easier for me." He look at me, and he said uh, "Where are you, who are you?" I said, "I am this and this and I'm from this and this town. And I want to stay longer because I, I saw a si... a sign, Jews got to leave the to... uh, the place." He asked me, you know, in Russian ??? I'll explain to you--what you did, where you--the difference, Russians or the Germans. I said, "For me, it's uh, no difference because I work for the Russians and I hope I'll work for the Germans." Yeah, I see, he opened up the, the drawer and he pull out a, a gun. And he want to... And I see he's grabbing the gun, I just opened the door and I ran away. I run away then I see, I got to leave. Then I went to a German officer and I asked him if that and that town, like Eišiškes, is occupied by, by the Germans. He took out a map and he look on the map, he said, "I couldn't tell you if this is occupied or not." Of course it's a small town. And I told him I am a Jew and this and this. He said, "For me it's no difference if you're a Jew or not. Just, I advise you to go behind the army, not to go with the side fields," because I know my... myself uh, this experience as a, where I go as a soldier in the Polish army. Because if they catch somebody uh, somewhere in the side uh, roads, they shoot 'em. Anyway, I was walking behind the German army for three days. Where I come in, in the villages, I don't say I am a Jew. I just, I speak perfect Polish and I go in mostly in Polish villages. And I find refuge by them and they... I slip by them, they give me to eat. And finally I come after the army up to one big village in Lithuania. It was closed by the border from Polish... on Lithuanian border. And there was uh, they building a big airport down there, the Russian. Finally planes come on Russian to bomb the airports down there where they occupied already. And I see all in the fields there are Germans and they start to shoot on the planes. They shot down the three Russian planes at that time. And all of a sudden, I am down there. They grab me--the Germans--and they start to open up uh, my belt and looking all over and this. And I had already a Lithuanian passport by that time, a Lithuanian passport. And they checked the passport. They could read, but they don't understand what is in the passport, you know. And they say, someone uh, someone say, he's a Russian spy, spy, got to shoot him. He speaks German, this and this. Anyway, I said, I said, what can I uh, say? I have luck that time. They checked me and then they let me go. Let me go.