Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Adele Sandel - [n.d.]

Hiding in the Forest II

What did you eat?

Those people who came up they had some--they brought up some apples and some bread.

The German people?

No, those people from the city. They ran away with us.

Oh, oh.

So, we begged them and we gave them money, "Leave this little food here at least. Look, small children," so they left a few apples, a few potatoes, and a couple breads, so we had that.

How long did you last in the woods with that?

Listen to this. So, my brother was already about thirteen or fourteen-years-old and that man from those two children's father was a young man about uh, thirty-eight, forty-years-old and my father is, was in his late fifties, so these three men they started to dig because we had absolutely nothing--no shovels or no instruments, nothing--so with their hands they started to dig a hole in the wet ground and, like, we were in our clothing--in the wet clothing and everything--we laid down in that uh, whatever it was, a hole and the rain, we just let it fall. What could we do? I don't know how it happened--next morning like the sun came out and everything got dried--our clothes and everything. So, so we had to do something because we knew that we can be heard already--that the Germans took that ??? that city where we were, you know. We couldn't go down so we had to seek shelters because October is very cold already in the woods there in Czechoslovakia. It's like, it's like the Switzerland. It is very cold already, October, November, you know. Even here sometimes...

Sure.

...it's very cold. So, they started to um, uh, uh, break branches from the trees and they made that hole bigger where we were and they put leaves underneath and those branches on the top. And, they, like, you make a sukkah, you know, like...

Sure.

...whatever, they threw over and we went...

Mother: ???

Yeah, okay. Eh...

Mother: Goodnight.

Goodnight, Ma. She is going to bed.

Goodnight.

I can't talk no more.

Mother: ???

That's okay. You--we can talk. There's no problem.

Yes?

Yes.

So, we went like um, we, we staying in that hole for four weeks in that--and the rain was pouring and, and we were like--my mother had a few potatoes she was hiding. She was keeping it for us. And, my brother was so weak already from not eating that when he came out from this bunker, we call it--we called it, so he was busy and he was like this, you know, and those few potatoes was frozen so she put a half a potato under her arm. She made it warm and that is how she gave it to him. How we survived those four weeks I will never know. We had absolutely, absolutely nothing to eat. Um, when the fourth week came and my father--again I say how smart he was, he saw that the end comes. So, he did something.


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