Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Hermina Vlasopolos - April 9, 1984

At four o'clock in the morning we got up and very soon we were walking toward Berma. It was still dark outside, the air was fresh. After awhile the sun began to shine and we saw the mountains covered with big blue forget-me-not, the biggest I had ever seen. Patches of blue, purple, grey and green covered the landscape and we felt like dancing in the morning sun. We were tired and run down but we were young and life was ours again. The blown up bridges looked like monsters engaged in a phantasmagorical dance. It seemed as if in their grace movement they had been turned to stone by some curse. Around eleven o'clock we arrived on the outskirts of Berma. Everywhere there were guiding sign for us. On the road, where in every railroad station we had been offered good home cooked food, here too on every street corner there was a table, soup bowls, a big pot of steaming delicious soup and home made bread. The food was for everyone. Everyone could have his fill. No one asked us to pay. In those days I came to know a brotherhood I had never known before and I have never encountered since. We were wearing the same rags in which we had left the concentration camp, but we were enjoying a constant holiday. The sun was shining on us and the people were smiling too. Our hope to catch a train in Berma was completely shattered. The railroad station was in shambles. This meant another two and a half miles of hiking to the next village stations. Those two and a half miles were the hardest. We found thousands of free prisoners there waiting for any kind of train or freighter. There wasn't any schedules. Train arrived and left at random. Ghost-like, tired and irritable people were yelling at each other, quarrelling in many languages, a real babble-like fair. I was sitting on a big rock when my friends went to look for water. Close by I saw a group of Russian officers. Suddenly I realized to my amazement that they were speaking Hungarian. I approached the group and very timidly, I asked them what kind of Russians they were who spoke Hungarian. They explained to me very politely that they belonged to a regiment from the anti-Nazi fighters, four of them were from Hungary, two from Czechoslovakia and one from Romania. "Romanian ???" I asked in my native language. "Ay, madam, allow me to introduce myself, Lieutenant C." He saluted and kissed my hand. It was very a Romanian gesture. So much the more unexpected as I was in rags. They too were going home. Their Russian uniforms although without rank were performing miracles. One of them, Lieutenant C., offered us a chance to travel with them so as to be better protected on the road home. We agreed wholeheartedly because the journey home had begun to take the shape of a nightmare. With the officers' help we were able to board the flight with Budapest as the destination. We hardly found room to sit on the floor. After one or two hours the locomotive ran out of fuel. We jumped on another, onto another train, but we lost Lieutenant C. in the crowd."