Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982

You don't have any idea if your parents ever thought of, of hiding or anything, do you?

It's uh, parents--my father was fifty-five or fifty-four years old. When something would come up today, for instance me uh, I, I don't think so I would take changes to go hide. You are--the age--your age is--I don't think so that you would take chances. You feel you want to save your life, it's true. Or you cannot take this. You can...I, I couldn't take it when I, when I would be fifty years old I couldn't take this, but I--what I went through with the nights walking through the woods in rain, in uh, in uh, in the morning to sit--to lay down in bed close to sleep and in the morning to go on the sun and to dry my clothes I should have it for the rest of the days to wash the clothes because it was smelling from this. We were washing ourself outside in snow. No water. In melted snow we had water. We didn't want--the last six months we didn't want to go away from the bunker because we didn't want that somebody should see that here is people working. So everything just maybe ten, twenty feet was everything sitting uh, nothing. Special wood we had to have it in the--in this--he should get--didn't--you shouldn't give a smoke--you shouldn't give a smell. We knew it that they are looking for us the last six months. We knew it. Because the police was, was in our hand, you know. We knew everything. So he said, "You better watch out because from the next town they had a guy and the guy said they are Jews in, in, in the woods." Maybe if it would be summer they would have get us, but in the winter was there maybe ten feet, twenty feet snow some places. They couldn't get to us.

How did you get your food then?

We had it. We had...

So you had it through the summer.

Like I said, we--that was the last six months we prepared ourself.

Oh.

We prepared with--the ma...the first thing was potatoes to have it. This is the main thing we learn. We had a guy--they were hiding Gentiles there. They run away from the army. From our town--from the army, they didn't want to go to fight against uh, against Russian. So they were not too far from us. So once in awhile a guy, a guy came over, you have what to eat, because we killed a deer, so, in case you want to take half, you should have it.

So you shared ???.

Yeah.