Eva Boros - February 11, 1983
Trauma of Hiding
You could—I mean, when you look back and see it as being terribly interesting, you know, it was also a very traumatic time.
It's, it's interesting anthropological, you know, from an anthropological...
Yeah.
point of view. But uh, of course at this point uh, we were intelligent enough to look around and to see. I also made friends there with the peasant kids and they taught me all kinds of things that a, a city--a Jewish city kid had no idea of their uh, how the things go there in--I mean, sex wise, you know. They opened my eyes.[laughs] It was very interesting for a little girl. All, all these things that went on. I must say that besides the shock that came afterwards, it was not too bad. The problem was we didn't suffer at all hunger, because all peasants, when they had a, they kill a pig usually in the winter, which it goes in, in uh, every family has a turn because everybody else comes to help. To kill a pig is a very big job to do. They use up every hair of that pig. I mean, to the last nail is everything used up. Uh, so food was plenty, milk was plenty, bread was plenty. We didn't suffer any... After we left that ruin. Also, we got rid of the guy, of that ??? because we were not underneath his--he was interested in doing any more trouble because he was in trouble himself. Everybody saw what is coming. It was the end, thank God. So at a certain point the Russian's uh, bombardment. The Germans were retreating, retreating always through there. It must have been a highway, I don't understand really how and what, you can look it up on a map if you want. It's not important to this uh, it's not uh, relevant. The point was that at a certain point the bombardment and the, the shooting was so bad we had to sit inside the room. And we knew that it is so close that that's it. So my sister and me, like two silly, stupid young girls, they're relieved that finally the, the danger of life is over, that the Germans are gone, ran out in the middle of the big uh, shooting grenades uh, uh, whatever you want, everything was coming down. And the, the uh, old peasant run after us. He really put his life on the line. I mean it was dangerous. He run after us, screamed with us like if he's our father and said, "You are going to stay!" Anyway, they took us in like their children. And uh, then immediately after that attack, it must have lasted half an hour or half a day, I don't know, you know. Uh, the Russians, we saw the Russian jump over the fence and there he was and uh, there—start--the officer started to come in and they said uh, they told the peasants, the whole village to clear out immediately because they don't know what uh, the Germans to put up a defense or what, they don't want any human. If possible, the less the better. So everybody out. And they took the peasants there since it was in the Middle Ages--I'm joking--they had their carts, long carts uh, they can be prolong or shortened with leather, long leather, they put the hay on top of this. And uh, they put whatever they had mostly there uh, feather beds, their down blankets and thing because they knew it was March and uh, you cannot sleep outside without being covered. So they took this and they took their four cows. That's what their possession were. They couldn't take the house, so that's what is the most important to a peasant. The cow is also a working animal there, not only milking. And we were up there in the mountains for a few days. There was no time to take any food because we were in a hurry. And they just took care of us. They gave us to the milk that they were milking warm, from the cow warm in order to have something warm. We didn't dare making uh, you know, no burning wood because the forest was their forest and they, it's--you know nobody is crazy to make a fire when uh, it can really start igniting a big uh, it could have brought trouble. So they didn't want... That's what we got warm food. And the old peasant slept under and his sons--three sons, they slept under the carriage and they put us with my sister in five and the doctor in the carriage in order to be covered. I mean, I mention it because it is unbelievable. It's really fantastic. But I'm terribly sorry that we never went back. So that was the, the end of the hiding. After this the Germans uh, things started to really collapse completely uh, I think about a few weeks later the whole front collapsed and it was the end of the war in Czechoslovakia at least. It was most or more or less the end of the war arrived I think May 10 in 1945. So we went back in March to Bratislava to find ruins and desolation. Uh, people started to come back from concentration camps uh, which was terrible and awful. And um, I had a grandmother uh, she was uh, my second gran...from uh, how do you call that? She was a--how do you call it?
Step-grandmother?
Step-grandmother, yeah.
Mm-hm.
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