Esther Feldman Icikson - October 23 & 29, November 5 & 12, 2001
Horsemeat
Like for horses.
Well--oh, by the way, I should tell you that I had uh, horsemeat in Siberia. There was a sick horse and they killed it and they sold the meat to us. And my mom bought a piece, she grinded it up and she made hamburgers from it. She didn't eat it.
Your mother didn't eat it.
No.
The children ate it.
Yeah. She says for the children to survive she had, it's, it's ok, God will forgive. Yeah. So we had hamburger made from horsemeat. I don't remember the taste, I don't remember that.
How did you escape from there?
Well, it wasn't easy actually. Um, there was no transportation. I thought I told you...
You did a little, but I...
Okay, there was no transportation uh, because there was a lot of people that wanted to leave. The reason they let us leave was because there was um... The war started between Russia and Germany. Until then we were arrested as spies. Polish spies, spying for Poland, because we tried to go back home from White Russia to Poland. But once they were at war with Germany, we were free to go. That's why there was an amnesty. My daddy was free to go. And um, all the people that they arrested and sent to Siberia were free to go, except there was no transportation. Um, there was one boat going up and down the river and there was a lot of people. And so people tried to um, get out. They did put together a big raft that took a few hundred people on it. But my mom said it wasn't safe to go with such a big raft.
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