Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982
Wife's Story
And then we went to the Third Reich back. Went to Third Reich back and then uh, finally... I don't know, I don't remember where, how they me... we met you.
Wife: Met me? I went... I was wandering for three days, myself and a cousin into ???
Yeah, her sister too, the other, to that girl.
Wife: It was so funny. Uh, this, the girl which got killed, she had a feeling of life, you know.
Oh, she was a very nice girl.
Wife: She, she never thought about death or get killed. She had a, a future and a feeling for tomorrow, you know. And we were wandering, the two of us. And finally I saw in the woods, a woman was walking with a little boy and she was hiding too, but she wasn't Jewish. She was uh, a Rus... she wasn't a Russian, but ???
White Russian.
Wife: Yeah. And I said to her, and I stopped her, I knew it, you know. She is from the people from the woods. I said to her uh, maybe you heard or you saw somebody from our people, you know. She said to me, "Yes, they're supposed to come today in our place." I said, "Can I go with you?" She said, "No. You're not allowed to come." And, and then on the way back, this little boy--God bless him, that he is--he said to me, he talked. Go here. And the instinct, I had a instinct to where they are located and I went. They didn't let me in, you know, inside. It wasn't inside, it was outside, where they cooking and they living there. But they didn't let me in. And I was sitting and my cousin under a bush. And that we'll sit and we'll wait 'til our people there pass by. And they came. And they already heard what happened to us. He said to me, "Oh come, why you sitting here, how come you're not going inside?" I said, "They don't let me in." They took me, he took me and right away they told me, he told the people to give me something to eat, whatever they had. They didn't have too much themselves. But whatever they had they give it to us. And they... He took me the second day to the partisans where we are located and was found way was maybe about fifty kilometers. And I have to tell you one thing. In this kind of a position uh, people they're very, very strong. I lived for three days with a piece of bread and I couldn't eat the bread. I couldn't swallow it without water. And I, and not far where we are walking around was a farm and I knew this girl and I went to ask for a drink of water and she didn't give it to me. She said, "Go away uh, the Germans around." And when she said... if she said no, then it's no. And I went back and I had a feeling, and this spring in 1944, the summer, was in June, was very, very hot. Any place with a little bit of water was dried out. Uh, and I had a feeling some place it's kind of low and has to be a wet, was wet. And was exactly, I went. And the ground was wet and I was wearing boots with a little heel, you know. And I slid in my heel, you know, and it got the mud and I would, and, and I really saved myself. I was really, really thirsty. And nothing happened to me, you know. And really, it was amazing what God can do.
Anyway, by that time, when we come back to the Third Reich, we met that captain ??? And then that same part was from before, they want to take us in, any of them, you know, they was waiting for us already to take us in. And I met the first time I decided to go to that ??? And when I met the first time that ??? he come to me and he said to me, "I hear about the stories about you, you guys. Uh, you're a big bandit." And I said, I said to him, "What, what bigger the bandit, the bigger the hero." And I said, "You're right." And that time I established in, in his place, in his part 'til the liberation.
This would probably be a good place to stop. [interruption in interview]
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