Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Fred Kendal - May 25, 1983

Uh, and they were beginning to go hunt for Jews and uh, I do recall that one time uh, they came very, very close to where we were at and they started firing and we heard dogs and we started running, but uh, we ran too soon. We went through some muddied areas and uh, and water, and quicksand, and all kinds of stuff. And I think we ran for three days straight and we thought that we got away far enough and then we would get--firing would begin again ???. Uh, I, I recall that at that point they came pretty close. We heard that--and this is, this is months later because we were a total of eighteen months. I don't know, but uh, once I do recall they were close to a--we heard that there were Russian partisans or paratroopers that would drop behind the Russian ??? into the woods and they told us they were taking some of the Jewish um, people and, and um, because um, they knew the area--they knew the territory and then so on and so forth. Uh, and, and a lot of them were fighting with the Russians of course. Many of those were in exodus also uh, with the war. Um, we were pretty close to where they were at when we ran away from the ??? search and what happened was, was that we--I know that a few of my uncles--of course, especially the young men, that would--they used them a lot--two of my uncles--one went with them, with the fighting men. They really didn't like people with families because that would slow them down. But we were--through them and also through--I guess they needed us or the knowledge of what my grandfather knew and my uncles knew-- the area and the territory beyond also. We were allowed to be with them, close to where they were. We sort of felt protected because, of course, they have guns and they have uh, they were organized--they knew what they were doing and so on and so forth.