Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lila Denes - May 19, 1989

Russian Soldiers

What happened next?

Pardon me?

What happened then?

Well, then for a while, the Russian soldiers were living in that house, even in our apartment. And we were in our uh, shop. And uh, but pretty soon things came to normal.

Did you talk to them? Did they...

They were okay. Except...

They knew you were Jewish?

Well, I don't know. They are anti-Semitic, you know, I don't know. When Leslie was born in April, they were still in the house, in some apartment. And they heard there is a baby. They came in and they brought me a dish of something, some food, you know. And they saw it that some of our belongings were there. They put some people in our apartment but they didn't take everything, so we had some of our furniture and things and they came in and they saw it pretty nice apartment. They said uh, "Bourgeois," you know, said "Bourgeois," and...

But they didn't take anything?

They didn't take anything except once um, captain came in. He want to--he brought some girl with him, he wanted to stay there and he said he'd give me a Persian rug. I said, "No, I don't want it." He said, "Yes, here." And when he left, he took it.

Did you use it again?

[laughing]


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