Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Death of Youngest Brother

Now I'll come to my first brother, where he got killed in, in the woods. When we was disarmed... When we, when we was disarmed, and we went to, from the Third Reich to Natsher Pustshe we always--me and my brothers--said in case something happened, we get lost from each other, we couldn't find out, there is a farm what we know the people will get in touch to come to that farm. We came to that farm and uh, it was late in fall I think in November or the end of November, to the farm that uh, farmer's wife she, she let us in. When she saw, she said, just--Here's my wife. [interruption in interview]

We went and we came to that farm and she told us, that woman she just, the Polish AK was in that place. And, and she said maybe they'll come back. Anyway, we went in, in the barn to take a rest, and they come back, the Polish. They, they come back. She pretend she go feed the chickens and anything, you know. And we took out a stone from under the barn and we walk out, it was beside a woods. And we walk out and we went like to another area, like I mentioned that village ??? We was going to that place. But we was a couple kilometer from that place. Hear some shooting going on. And the bullets was flying straight to us. What happened, when that AK come over, my younger brother, the first one which he died came to that same farm. When he was sure nobody's down there, they're going to meet him. Somebody, or we're going to find out some kind of information. And he walk in and right on the post from the AK and they fired from that machine gun and the whole series of bullets hit him right in his leg. Hit him ri... right in his leg and then he, he crawl up in a bush. About a bush, a big bush and fell down there. He fell down there and they was...

Wife: On the snow.

...and fell down there. On that night came a big snow. And the snow covered him up. And they was standing for three days down there. And he was laying without help in that bush. Finally we come in and we cou... uh, in that village Mijansi and they say the brother's not... my brother's not there and there's not there and something... And then they told us another guy they went down there and the shooting was down there. Finally, they send--no, they wait for a few days, then yeah, and they, he feel when they move out from that farm, he start to yell for, for help. Then the farmer's little boy--he was maybe about twelve years old--come out, he heard the, the yelling, come out, and he come to, to his mother and he told his mother that my brother is wounded down there. They take him in, in the house and they hide him. They have a, a steam bath uh, like a farm steam bath just, just...

Wife: Outside.

...outside. It's a little steam bath. And they come up with something else. They hide him down there. And they want to go to take a bath and a steam bath in that. And she find any kind excuses. This is, this is not working right and this is not working right, to talk him out, not to take a bath. And we don't know nothing about that, you know. Then we send a man, a good friend of ours to find out what's going on down there. The brother is supposed to be and he's not there and we went down there and he's not back. Then she told the man. He's there in the steam bath. He's badly wounded in the legs. And uh, we couldn't get him out because they still there.


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn