Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Asner - October 10, 1982

Partisan Activities 3

And then they start to fire that uh, how do you call them bullets what uh, that can burn? If you hit and somebody they...

They explode inside of you?

...explode in fire.

Yeah, I don't have a name.

Anyway, they hit, because we hide behind a barn, they hit the barn and the barn is getting fire. And all the smoke cover us up. And then we could run away. We run away to... guys were light wounded, one, and they came mostly in the same place, bullets ??? light. And I didn't have no coat and everything. And then, we run for a little while uh, for a couple kilometers then I know, I saw a farm. I run in the farm and uh, one guy recognized me. He said, "Abe, that's you?" And one guy was with me and he have the, the rifle against him. I... He said, "I'm going to put him down." I said, "No, give me your coat first." And then he give me. And um, I took his coat, I put on, because I didn't have no coat, it was wintertime. And uh, we took out uh, I put the coat on and then we took a couple horses and sleds and we hid to the woods. We lucky that time, that smoke the barn start to burn and the smoke cover us up. And they was maybe about thirty-five, something like that, and we was nine. And with machine guns and we had just a hand machine gun. And we, and, and this is the first time what, that's uh, new uh, commander ours been sent from, like, from the east, and organized. And then we come back and he said to that commander of ours, he said if the first class boys you can go any fight you want it with them guys, we, we retreat so organized. One retreat, and one lay down, and keep holding fire and then the other one lay down keep holding fire, the other one retreat. And then the barn start to burn and the smoke cover us up and then we start to run. And then night comes with my... the night that we call our mother.

"The night is your mother." I think I'll probably remember that, as well, if you should write a book called, "the night is your... our mother."

That's right.

That'd be a great title, don't you think?

That's a great title, yeah. Lots of people used to call, "the night is our mother."


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