Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Then uh, in 1944, we hear on the news, we--because we get uh, radio on there, contact with Moscow--we heard the news from the front. At the front is coming closer and we hear shooting already from uh, artillery, all kind of... And we start to prepare some uh, food in case uh, we get uh, surrounded, couldn't come out from the woods to get some food. Start to bring in cattle and keep alive and some grain to, to keep, to eat, to alive. And one time it was going at night and we heard some close shooting. And then we heard the closer they come on the radio, this taken over by the Red Army, this is taken over by the Red Army, this is, you know. And finally... And then they sent from Moscow one captain by the name of ??? I think he was Jewish. I, I think, I think he was Jewish. And he was very uh, he was a different style of life than, than the Russian. A different style of life. And he don't uh, say. He don't say he was Jewish. Then...

He was an aristocrat? They were... they were wealthy? They were... How was he different?

Well, he was different. The whole style of living, but not, not, not like a Russian. The, the rank was a captain. When he was uh, like uh, appointed from the uh, Russian government, the Russian, like uh, the FBI, to take care on all the partisan uh, partisans, what are doing. He was the oh, uh, that kind of work he was doing, nothing else. Besides, they want to blow up trains, that's a different story. Uh, mostly this was his idea.

Intelligence?

Intelligence.

Yeah, okay.

Intelligence, yeah, intelligence. And, and then we start to prepare uh, prepare. And one day in the morning, we hear uh, some kind of shooting is going on all around us and we don't know what's going on. They're shooting from all over. And one uh, fellow, he's now in Israel, by the name, they call him Khasene. Why they call him Khasene? They name him Khasene ...

Khasene or Katan?

No, no, Khasene, that... So, he told a story in Yiddish, you know, and said, ??? Khasene, and then they start to call him Khasene, I don't know. One day he come over and he used to speak with a funny accent, you know. And he said to the commander, he said uh, "Commandant commander," he said, "the Russian uh, from just in front, they, they call, uh--how do you call the first one uh, troops that are going in to find out uh, uh, like from the front?--they call 'em ??? in, in Russian."

Okay.

They, they met the, the Russian first, first ??? what they met. And they, they said, the news from the Red Army, the ??? how, how do you call this?

It's a rat patrol.

A rat patrol, yeah.

That's what it is.

Yeah, yeah. And we met, the first patrol from the Russian army. And my wife used to cook uh, down there. When she... And then she said, I don't believe it. The fall, she... I say... And she was cooking and they brought this to us at that time. And said, "If I'll see them, then I'll believe it, the guy in that patrol." I said, "Who's sitting over here?" Because the partisans they used to go in the same uniforms what the Red Army, mostly, lots of them. And then they found out in that meeting with the first, with the first patrol. It was something, it was something. They give us so much credit to us for that kind of work we was doing.