Larry Brenner - December 13, 1981
Fertorákos 4
Going back to uh, life in Fertorákos uh, as I said before, we were there from I believe from November 'til about middle of March. And then in Mar... We hoped, we heard, we heard uh, that the Russians are closing in, they're real close because every night we heard bombing. Not on our place because that was a small little village, but the major cities next to us. And you could hear the front actually all day long, all day long uh, uh, cannon shots and so on and so on. Matter of fact, one day when we were outside in the field working... And the work was hard, but it wasn't life threatening. It wasn't all the time that if you didn't uh, constantly then they shot you. They moved you constantly, the Germans. Get going, get going, get going. And sometimes they let you maybe ten or fifteen people one section and they leave you alone and they go some other places. And one day we were digging this uh, tank trap in a vineyard. Because what the main purpose of the tank that all the way the Austrian border to make this tank trap. So, they felt the Russians are coming and tank trap. Probably the Russian arrive they have a big flat and they ran over. So, all of a sudden, in nowhere at all we heard machine guns zoom, zoom, all, almost all hitting us. And we look up there a Russian ??? plane, what they call a glider coming so close, almost on top of our heads. The engine shut off. And I don't know, we almost could see the soldier in there. It was so amazing to me and they were sh... I don't know if they knew who were, we were or they were shooting at us or what. But luckily nobody got him. But we seen, we heard machine gun coming out from that plane. So, we knew that they are very close, because when a plane like this comes in without detection, we knew that he's they're close. So uh, that was around March or so and we were praying actually that they come fast and things will be over for us. They must have been real close because one evening, I think it was Pesach night, it was a Pesach night...
This is March 1945.
March in 1945, yes, '45. It has to be...
They were close.
Yeah, it has to be, because... So uh, one night then they wake us up, middle of the night. Everybody out. We seen a bunch of, bunch of people outside in the street lined up. We have to get our belonging. We still had something belonging. And also, as I mentioned to you that I... Food-wise I was pretty well set because I had this connection with the fellow ???, and I made some change, I took my share, ten, fifteen percent of the thing. And I did have... Lots of people did not have any. They gain a little food here and there. But the main concern was always me, because you lost lots of humanistic feeling. When after you are saved, then it's leftover I give you something else. But I did help people, well I helped one... Almost everybody had some kind of a connection because they did not take away our belonging. They came from Budapest because the Germans did not take away our watches or, or, or clothing or, or, or money. If you had it, you hid it and it was yours. So, they told us to get our belonging and start marching.
This is Pesach.
Approximately Pesach, I mean, I know it was Pesach because I tried to keep Pesach. I know that I didn't eat my... I had my bread hidden away and I didn't, tried not to, it only put, I, I, I traded it for potatoes. I tried to keep it.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn