Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Martin Koby - April 20, 1999

Hiding

Hiding where?

Oh...

In the village?

At the village, you know...

???.

A kilometer, two kilometers from your house.

Do you remember, remember when that was?

Huh?

Was it July of '42?

No, no. I'm telling you, September...

Septem...

...or the beginning of October. Because when...

So right, right away this happened?

When?

You--as soon as the Germans came in...

'42, '42.

'42.

'42.

So it was over a year.

Because we were--over a year and a half already. Because we worked on the farm.

Uh-huh.

We started to work on the farm in 1941. It was a miserable winter. And the--then we worked--I used to always go with my father. My brother always stayed with my mother. He always gave her a hard time. I mean he didn't know, you know...

A kid.

...kid you know, "I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I don't ???." And we stayed until the liquidation of the Jews in Rovno. And this meant we were sitting--you see, my father got a soft job. He--we used to take of the, of the c...herd of cattle, cows, 300 cows or 250. We had a couple bulls you know, uh, or we had several--oh, not bulls, oxen. Bulls we had also.

This is a soft job ???...

Sure, not bad. It was a soft job. We used to take the f...you know, you have to graze them. You were--we would graze. And then in the evening, like in the winter, you had to give them hay or straw. It wasn't too bad. I mean, it's--we used to get help to move the manure because one man--two man could not move the manure. We used to get help.

Alright...

Somebody else moved the cows. We had to make sure they were fed, watered and in their places at night.

I mean, it wasn't working in a mine, right?

No, no, no...

So...

...no mine.

Okay.

It was not bad.

Okay. So that's October of '41.

'42.

'42, when this happens.

When...


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