Manya Auster Feldman - August 11, 1998
News of the War
Let me just stop you for just a second. The--did you have any news of the war, did you get...
Not, no. Not --
You hadn't heard Stalingrad?
Not, not--we didn't know, no. We didn't know what's going on, no. But, but when we were in the partisans, they had radios. We knew of what's, what's going on. That was in 19...that was--I'm talking about nineteen-forty...forty-three, forty-three, in April. '43. I don't remember when Stalingrad, um...
January?
In January, in '43? So they started already, being, being b...b...beaten, the Germans. But we didn't hear anything. But the partisan movement was very strong in that area and they gave them an awful lot of trouble.
This is, this is uh, Pesach?
This is Pesach. We knew when Pesach was.
So you were with a Jewish, a Jewish group?
A Jewish group. And uh, that, that's when I contracted scabies. You know what's scabies?
Uh-huh.
It was hor...all of us. All of us had scabies. They are in the joints of, of your body, in all your joints. And they itch terrible. And they are, they are blisters. You can't scratch. When you scratch, they burn. So we were all with scabies. And we had lice and we had fleas. And we had these, these huge white rats that were roaming--running around us. And that--we were--we had potatoes. But the partisans, the local partisans came back and, and they started acting, acting with their uh, uh, assignments. And there was one uh, one--it was one um, was one doctor from Germany. He was among the partisans. So the partisans used to come to visit us. So they brought the doctor. And he, he checked us for a scabies. And he made for us a home remedy. He told us to find um, uh, the, the fat from inside of the pig. It was called the lard, lard. Then the, the um, the thing that you put on the wheels of a, of a buggy.
Grease?
Pardon?
Grease?
Grease, the grease. And also sulfur of the, the end of the matches have, you know, is the sulfur. Make a mixture and rub ourselves. And, and it--in a couple weeks, it started disappearing.
And your feet, did they...
Pardon me?
And your feet that, your feet had frozen, did they...
They, one, one, one toe started getting uh, rotten. But it uh, it got better.
Okay. Let's stop here for a moment.
Okay.
Um, we're at May, 1943. You were, a...again, sort of reunited with a, a group of Jews?
No. I left off and I said that I was uh, hiding with Jews, individuals, that are--were not affiliated with the partisans...
And so were...
They were just hiding in the forest. And that, in that forest were uh, um, partisans, the local partisans.
And you were--there were rats, there was disease.
There was--you name it, everything, yes.
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