Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982

Mm-hm.

Just, just don't answer him nothing. Somehow, somehow he went out. But every night they took three, four lines away. And they just get in the forest. Well we went between Freilassing and Laufen--it's about twenty, thirty kilometer from Laufen--I said to my friend, "That's it. Night time we walk." Daytime we couldn't walk with the planes--we run. And then we walk, I mean, a lot of forest were there and we were on the side. I said, "We go." And we got some bread and we took off--maybe about ten. Four were shot with machine gun. And I was running so much, so fast, that no--from where I have so much strength to run, young as I was. And I saw that my--all uniform--all my face got notches from the trees--from the branches. All over, I mean, I didn't care. So run maybe so far and we stop. Now where we go? In the forest it was damp. That was end of April--the end of March, beginning April. So we, we hungry. Now we're supposed to go--we went to an old lady--a German lady. At night we told her that we're hungry, that we needed something. And we were dirty. Can you imagine? No shower, no soap, no nothing, I mean nothing. So she give us a potato and she put milk in it and that was no cook. Nothing on the stomach. So you know, said to the people, "Let's--don't take the milk. Eat the potato and then when the stomach get used to potato..." They say, "No, I want the milk," so, my friend took the milk. He didn't survive. His stomach was like, like a ??? He got, he--there was nothing to eat. He passed away. And this potato--we took a bread, we burnt it and we eat it ??? stomach or potatoes, it didn't work. And we--and then when we took a little milk...