Miriam Biegun - August 10, 1983
Experience as a Child Partisan I
Um, how were you taken care of there? Were you with a group of children, did you go...
From the beginning, it was not too bad, but later on it became very bad because we were surrounded constantly with the Nazis and the Ukraines, White Russians deep while walking in the Germans. See, the Germans from the beginning were afraid to go in the forest. The forest was very, very big, you know, very, very big. So they were scared to go in the forest, but then the Russian and the, they used to call them Vlasovists, the White Russians, and they said they took German Shepherds, and they went to the woods, and more they went to the woods, farther we had to get, deeper, deeper in the forest, it's, you know, the forest was very big.
These were General Vlasov's men?
Yes.
And, and...
I don't know, they use to call them White Russians.
And they were hunting you with dogs?
Sure.
Do you remember hearing dogs in the...
Sure, I remember. Sure, I remember. We were once--you know, we used to change places when we were in the forest, and we used to get signals so that it is, we have leave everything and run away, I mean, you know. So, from the beginning was a very big massacre. It was in '42. In the forest was a very big massacre because the Germans, the Vlasovists and the Ukraines came in the forest. It was a very big forest. So we had to run deeper and deeper, so if you had c...a pair of shoes extra, or a sweater extra, you know, we would stay there for a half of year in one place, you have your bunker?
Bunker.
Yeah, and you have your, your little benches there or something that you make from, carved on the wood, so you make a little chair or a little wooden spoon or something. You had to leave everything and run away. Farther we run, farther they came after us. And the Ger...the she...the she...dogs keep following us. So we had to hide in some kind of swamps, you know, water.
Swamps.
Yeah, so the dogs could lose us. And I remember once, mine auntie stuffed mine face because, you know, I was so young, I see a dog, start crying, you know. I have to be careful. So I almost--she almost choked me because I had to be deep in the water so I wouldn't cry, and I wouldn't say, oh is that dog is coming. Until somebody, if he has to do, so somebody run the other way. So the Germans saw him, and you know, it was partisan came to help us out. The partisans, it means the soldiers, the fighting.
The Russians mainly.
No, it was like, you know, the fighters, like, I was in partisan, but I cannot say that I was fighting. I was a child. So we were, they called us the young, young children, and all the women and all the men. There was a couple older men, people there. We were like half a mile away from the resistance.
In other words, away from the, from the fighting itself.
Yeah.
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