Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zofia Szostak - 1985

This is Dr. Frankel's house?

Pardon? Yes, mm-hm. But they, they managed to escape. You see, but, but the way it, it burned, it did not get...it didn't get bombed from, from the plane. And it did not get, uh, you know, burned because of some, some missiles or, or, or anything, you know. It was burned on, on a purpose. Now I--just like our soldiers--this, this house, like I said, was on the outskirts of, of Bochnia, and uh, you could see far away, you know, first this was a little cholera cemetery, uh, um, you know, years, years before when we had cholera epidemics, people used to be buried over there. And behind this were fields. So when Germans were coming, they were coming through, through those fields. And uh, they noticed that from our home, soldiers were shooting at them, you know. And uh, later, when my father told me, uh, one of them took my, my desk, you know, and put it by the window, and he used this as a, as a place to lay down and shoot, you know, because he could, he could see very well. But then they, they managed to escape, you know, and, and everything else, and for a little while there was no shooting. So it was not...the house was not burned then, but maybe an hour or two later uh, I don't know, they, they shoot something, something got this, this house, like, like three times. I don't know what...whatever it was, and the house was started burning. And uh, Miss Frankel and my father and mother were sitting down in the basement, and my mother told me, like, she said, "Well, let's not be afraid," because if the house, whatever, burn, you know, it's not going to burn down, because uh, there was supposed to be some fire protection between uh, levels of, of the house, you know. And uh, well, as it turned out, okay, basement--was kind of raised basement--never burned, but the whole upper story, you know, her, her apartment burn and, and this and finally...Now at first they didn't know what was going on, it was getting warm, but then they heard just like, somebody was uh, you know, throwing things, so my father said, "Help!" Maybe somebody is uh, robbing, you know, robbing us or something, and throwing everything, and maybe now they would, they will start burning this house. But the house was already in a, in a, on a fire, and some parts were falling down, so this is what they heard, you know. And they tried to run away, and--but our neighbors told us that when they saw the house, house burning, they wanted to go and save, the Germans held them. They says no, because they are "szpieg," spies, over there, you know? You could not go, let them burn. But they escaped, you know, through the...to, to another house, and I met them later, three, three days later. And I didn't even know where they were. I had to, I had to ask, ask people, you know, and uh...