Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982
Life in Partisans and Slovakian Army
When you joined the partisan group for a couple weeks, you said you were in them for about two weeks...
Yes.
...until the anti-Semitism started. Did you have any actions against the Germans?
No, they were shooting alr...I didn't. I was too far away from them.
How did you get food when you were with the partisans?
With the partisans how we got food? Uh, how--it's a good question, you know. I don't even remember how we had the food, and we had food. We had food and I don't even remember how we got the food.
Do you know how you got guns?
Guns, yeah. There, the, the--at night, they threw down the, the, the guns--the Russian. I had guns before, before, before the partisan came.
Right, well you had it from the service.
Yeah, wa...not from the service, no. After all was a war in uh, in Slovakia--was a war fighting against the Russia. Guns you could get very easy a gun, when it's a war you can get easy a gun. You, you give him a, a few dollar, a koruna, he bring--he made you a gun, any, any kind. It was easy to get a gun in the war.
Oh, the gun you had was not from the army.
No, no. I didn't have. I had a shovel.
Oh.
No, they didn't gave us. We--when I was in the army, we were digging Dunaj--I don't know that you heard--maybe you were reading Dunaj? It goes around Czechoslovakia, Hungarian, our border, Dunaj.
Mm-mm.
And this Dunaj, every year when the snow was melting covered the whole, the whole area...
Flooded.
...flooded.
Mm-hm.
So we was building next to the Dunaj another in case the water comes out we should go in, in this....
Oh, like a bank, a, a--oh I know what I'm thinking--a trench.
Yeah. 'Til, 'til uh, when the Germans came in there, they had their uh, their, their uh, air field--then we were working for the Germans. Or we had a better time by the Germans when we were working like from the Slovaks. They gave us better food to eat.
This is when you were in the army.
In the army. In the army. We were still soldiers.
Mm-hm.
Maybe this Germans they didn't even know that we were Jews.
Is this be...did you have your blue uniform yet?
Blue uniform.
You still had the blue uniform.
Yeah. Or maybe the Germans they didn't know that in Slovakia the Jews they, they have uh, blue uniform and the Gentile they have green uniform. I, I don't know. We were--they were giving us better food. We were eating food what the German army, in the army.
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