Regina Silver - June 21, 1982
Start of War
Do you remember how you heard about the war?
When the war broke out?
Mm-hm.
Oh, it was right away on the radio. On the radio it was in 1939.
Do you remember...
It started bombardier and the bombers was falling over the heads. And I remember it was um, after, it was before Rosh Hashanah the, the war broke out and uh, I was still was--my stepmother was sending me I was walking by the field ten kilometers in a small town to look for a shochet to shechit the, the chickens, the capons. And the ??? were helpless going over my head I was hiding in the bushes; I could have got killed before the chickens. Yeah it was true. I came to my auntie, to my father's sister, you know, in the house they were all in the fields and nobody was home. When my auntie saw me coming in with these chickens, she said, she just said, "God why are you so stupid to go?" My ??? It should be your daughter, your daughter she wouldn't send you like she didn't care if I got killed, you know. She was so upset why I was risking my life to go to shechitah capons. Because it was Rosh Hashanah and they wouldn't need the chickens if somebody was killed it, it would have to be a shochet and I came to this little town it was the first bombs fell at and you know I knew uh, my girlfriend got killed in the, in the--from the, from the bomb. Und I knew a man his children run away from their own house because they hide in a basement in somebody else's house so all the three kids got killed. This man is now still living in uh, he lives in uh, Israel I think. It was his wife and the three children got uh, ???. They thought their house would be bombardiered but, but it just happened that the neighbor's house that got fired the bombe und they got killed und uh, I know his sister, sister still lives in Israel, she was my girlfriend got killed too she Sh...Shapiro you know--you don't know...
Do you remember your thoughts?
When?
When this was all going on? A; Oh, my God just the survival and see my husband back alive. Because he was in the army...
Oh, he was in the army then...
And I was left with a child who was 2 years old. And then I lost this child. My husband came back and find me already not in my house he find me in the ??? like I said over the river we run away with my father, may him rest in peace, und with my uh, all my seven brothers.
You ran away immediately?
We run away from Poland when the, when the, the Germans took over, sure we run away right away. Und then the, the Russians want us to um, move farther from there but, because this was the border we were there by the, in the border town. They want us to move farther und they want us to take Russian passports so we are Polish citizen und we thought the war will end a week or two we were thrown from our homes. So they, they, we didn't want to take Russian passports. And this was the miracle we, uh, lived through the war if we would take Russian passports we would fallen into the, to the Nazis and uh, got killed the same as the six million that the, the, the surviving from the, the Russian Jews was like a, like a miracle happened. My husband's brother, the oldest brother was with us they run back and he went away to Treblinka. I don't know--he got lost; I don't know where he's killed.
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