Esfir Lupyan - December 17, 2007
Russian Partisans
No food...
Do you remember how you felt as a little girl?
No food...
Hiding in the hay?
Yeah, I remember the sick. You know, sick? I was very, you know uh, we are not like children now, you know, maybe now it's good, I don't know. Yeah, but... because it was very dangerous and we see how people, you know, suffer everything. They suffer. I didn't eat maybe two days, I told Mom... My mom found uh, a carrot from ground. I ate carrot. I don't know, in this case your, your body work differently uh, and we reach, we reach uh, wood and we, we were stay people, partisan. Russian partisan. And they say...
Russian partisans?
Russian, yes...
Not Jewish partisans.
Not Jewish, no. And they say, "No, you... Nobody, nobody safe from ghetto. You are not--how do you say?--you are not through. We will kill you," because nobody, nobody could survive from ghetto. And she said that, "I, I run out. I, I go out." And they say, "We never believe you." So, they put... that I remember very well. They put her on wall uh, near wall and they start to kill her, start. And then Belorussian, Russian woman say, "Why, why you kill her? She has child. What will, what will you do with this child? Why? Look at her. She is a skeleton. She, she survive." So, they come to me, they give me uh, milk, milk, and they let my mom to live and we go in forest. And in forest was terrible, terrible situation because nobody want talk to her, nobody want accept her--partisans--nobody want sorry... nobody was sorry of her. It was so rude people.
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