Sylvia Feld - July 28, 1982
Liberation
SF: Working there, maybe, I don't, I can't uh, uh, request how long--maybe a month or something that we worked there and uh, they were very nice to us. But finally approached our liberation and we became free. The, the planes were coming and soldiers were on the ground and applications were on the end and the Germans start running and we saw they ran away from, from, from the villages, they ran away from the, from the places and, and, and the whole village became like empty...
NF: [whispering]
SF: And they became oh, Am... A... American tanks they became and, and, and we went up and asked the army uh, where we can get food uh, we asked where our doctors are because uh, we became very sick. And my younger sister she start losing her voice, she couldn't talk anymore because we were in the s...straw, the straw was very wet and this-- the vocal cord, she lost it. And they sent us to doctors to check on us. And finally the, they asked us uh, we wanna go home or what we wanted. Then we were ready like going home to see or somebody from our family survived. Then they put us on trains from Czechoslovakia. Going home...
NF: [whispering]
SF: Going home, then we were on the train but they on the train was quite, quite some days.
NF: [whispering]
SF: Yes was Russian soldiers in, in, in, in, in uh, in uh, going home through Germany then, um...
NF: From Czechoslovakia to Poland. [whispering]
SF: Was uh, really from, I'm sorry from Czechoslovakia to, to Poland. But the train stopped all the time, every, you know, few hours the train stopped. We went down from the train and this was high in mountains. We had to walk down and to look for the fields to bring for ourself up whatever was grown vegetables, or beets or carrots or, or potatoes and this is the way we ate. One day I remember then uh, the train was up on a hill and the train stopped and we asked how long like for an hour or two and went down and I fell from the top to the end of the--where the fields was growing the food. And I was rolling down and I caught then I broke my head and neck and, and, hand and, and, and arms and everything. But somewhere, somehow God was good to me, I survived...
[loud noise] Excuse me.
SF: I survived and nothing happened and that's the way we came home to Poland. When I came home to Poland there was like then ever... they brought everybody to Łódź. Was like a organization. We came to this organization and we asked or we can notify ourself and, and find out or if somebody left for the family. This is the most that I cared and this was the most purpose for me of coming home because in a way the Czechoslovakian people were nice to us too but I want to go home, I want to see whose left for the family because was with no knowledge who, who was alive.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn