Pauline Kleinberg - October 28, 1982
Seeing Father's Ghost
Husband: The shema.
The shema. He said, "Say the prayers." He said, "You know I can live already another two hundred years more, because I did it all." And when I--when he said this, we were all shaking like the leaves. And I must have fall asleep for a split second. But the split second was so long I don't know, it seems to me that I see my father comes--my father was dead then already and he walks me by my hand and my sister with the other, and he walks us across the border to my sister where she's married and there it was three Jews to the Third Reich. When I wake up, I see the Germans are gone. I said, "Manya, you won't believe it." I said, "I don't know, I, I--was I sleeping? How long was I sleeping?" She said, "I don't know even you were sleeping." I said, "I was sleeping." My father walked us into my sister's uh, house. And, and the Germans were gone. So after this, a few minutes later the, the people came in, you know for the--they run away, they were afraid. Because if they catch a, a non-Jew hiding out a Jew, they burn down the place--they burned them down, they shot them--they shot the Jews. So they ran, they knew that we going to be caught. They run out of the house. After awhile they came back, they sat and they prayed. They very, were religious. Said, "You know, girls, the people now--when it gets dark, I'm going to see that somebody"--You see, in the Third Reich--which it was a few miles away, a couple miles away--Jews were still there free. I mean, they were not free--they were with armbands, they were--had, had to go to work, and there were raids on and off. But they were still Jews living. But I never told her that we had there a sister. That was--we wouldn't endanger our sister there. He said, "But I'm going to see that somebody would take"--we would know where to go--"somebody going to take you. They're going to bribe the um, customs on the, on the border to let you go by. And then in the morning you're going to be on your own." When we started off walking--I don't know, that sounds very crazy--someone from a very distance--I don't know who it was up to now--I haven't seen--someone from a very distance showed like this--"Don't go, don't go." So we turned back. We didn't know--I, I don't know up to now who it was. After this we heard some people were shot on the, on the--by the--from the customs. They had dogs. I know from one woman, very respectable ??? mother--she has here a daughter. She--I don't know if she knows about it. She was given to, to be killed by the dogs. So we came back. We stayed another day to a different--in a different place. And they seen that we had other smugglers. Now we're going to take vodka and we're going to take--he's going to drink with them, you see, he's doing this--he's uh, bringing back and forth from the Third Reich to the General over, over the border.
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