Helen Lang - February 23, 1982
Escaping from March
Were people getting shot? Did you know, did you see anyone get shot?
I want to tell...
All right.
These kids--see the people were going this way and we turned around--we were going--we wanted to go back to the, the Russian, you know. We figured the Russians will take us in, you know, like uh, naturally we know what's going and what kind of people the Russians are. We said, "We're going." So some of them, you know, the people from the town said, "Where are you going? Where are you going?" You know, German. And we said, "Uh, uh, well we forgot something." You know, it was always some kind of an excuse. We had on the, the--still the uniform--the blue and grey uniform under our coat, you know. We were, you know, we bundled us up because we couldn't leave it no place--that's what we had on. And the shoes, and we had a turban fixed up, you know, because our hair was so short. So we got to a place where a truck came and the people were always asking, where we going, where we going. It looked suspicious. So somehow we saw a truck and we asked would he give us a ride. Where we were, what we were doing, where we were going, I don't--I can't tell you. He says, "Hop in."
Was this a, a German truck?
Yes.
Was this a military truck?
A military truck. So we went in and he picked up some other women too. These women start to uh, talk to us and she could tell, you know, we are not German. She went to the driver and she says uh, "What are these, spies?" In German. "Who are these people here?" So the truck--the driver came to us, he says, "You better get off from here. It's no good that you're here." And he left us off. He knew I think who we were.
Was he a Wehrmacht?
I think so. Mm-hm. Because that woman carried on there--on the, on the truck. She said we are spies. So we were again alone. Then we were going and going and we sat--we went into a house--an empty house. We saw a house, we went in there and we said, "We're going to wait 'til the Russians will come." But in the meantime, before they empty a, a village or a town, there are some Germans--they go look around whoever is there left over. And what do you think, two German SS come in and they find us and they say, "What are you doing here?" We says, "We're running away from, from the Russians and we wind up here, we're so tired." He says, "You better get out of here because the Russians will be close here." And all of them started to talk Hungarian.
The SS.
The SS. He says in Hungarian, "What are you doing here Hungarians?" So we said to them, "We are three uh, uh, run away from Budapest because the Russians are there." We didn't know where to--what else to say to them. "And all of a sudden the ship brought us here and there we wind up." We give him a story--a blue story. He says, "Well you better get out of here because if you don't want to get to the Russian"--say "Oh sure, we want to go out of here." And we went out.
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