Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982

The Partisans

Do you know who the leaders were of your partisan group?

No. I don't think so. Cannot remember--I cannot recall. I know, I know one guy but he was a Jewish fellow, ??? from our town. Who is this? Okay. He was a, a very big man--a Jewish fellow--??? his name, Slova...Slovak Jews. Very big man he was. From the Russian guy I don't remember.

Uh...

Lots of Polish Jews were, were big men between, between the partisan.

You said there were about two thousand in the partisan group that you joined?

Yeah. More maybe.

Well, most--were there only the twenty-eight Jews were the ones that you were with?

No, they were a lot the Polish Jews, a lot Polish Jews.

Did they also leave and go their own way when the anti-Semitism started?

I--one guy about--he, he's here in Detroit--he said when we split they went to Ru...to, to Poland. He himself went to Poland. He went to Russia. And then he came back with the, with the Czechoslovakian army. When the Russian they start to win and when they came here not too far from Czechoslovakia, he became a Czechoslovakian army. And all they--what they went to Russia, they came with the--they went all in the Czech army.


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