Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Bernard Hirsch - June 29, 1982

So he said--this Gentile what he was over us he said, "I give you a uniform and I give you a paper that you can, that you can uh, go." So he made me a paper from the office, himself, this Gentile. And he gave me a uniform and I picked up myself because I heard that in my town from where I come there are twenty-four boys hiding. So I was planning in case something is going happen that I'm going to go to, to mine town back between uh, my friends--the Jewish boys what they are hiding in the woods. So I picked up myself one night and I ran to the--I bought myself a ticket on the train. He bought me--he brought me this Gentile what he was over us--he brought me everything ready just to go. Uh, in ??? when I walked in, in the train I found mine uh, captain--a Gentile. I got scared that he going to catch me, he's going to take me back. And when he saw that I'm in a green uniform and I walked in, in the door, he turned around. So I saw it already that he doesn't care that I'm--he, he--that I--he doesn't care that I'm running away. So a whole night I was traveling. That was in the afternoon I left there and a whole night, because from there to us was a whole night traveling in a express train. Was over six hundred and--five hundred or six hundred miles. In the morning, in the morning when I came there eight o'clock in the morning uh, I left out of the train and I was walking to get the bus to mine town--not too far to mine town. So they stopped me--soldiers they stopped me.

Czechoslovakian?

Slovak...Slovakian soldiers. And they asked the papers from me. And I showed them my papers, everything because a guy from my town gave me his, his book. He--his son died in the war and I was close with him, he was my age. So I--once I was in town so I asked from him his papers and he gave me the papers. So I was going on this papers, traveling when I run away from the army. I was traveling on his papers.

Mm-hm.