September 1942

In Kanibadam, everybody always listened to the news to hear if something was going on. Life was easier where I was, and we had the benefit of warmth all year round. It was just hard to find work, so my brother and I decided to become salesmen at the local market. We would buy things like butter, apricots, and then resell them for a profit. The Russian police forbade this since it was a communist city we were in. We were caught and brought into the police station. I explained that this was my only source of income, since I lived on the kolchoz, and the fact that I was bartering, and so no money was ever exchanged. I dug into my coat pockets and grabbed a couple of apricots to show the policeman. When the officer saw that I was not lying, he let me go.

Here in Arsoftoskya there was very expensive food. Anywhere else would have been cheaper. I used to bring food and articles from a neighboring city whose items were cheaper and sell it back here and make money. I would also do the opposite. Money was no object at that time. I made good money. I also surrounded myself with girls for the most part. Since I had money, I would take them to shows, and dance with them before and during the breaks. In those days, music would play in the halls before a show started and during a break. We were young and life was just great for us.

Once I went to the market and got myself an Alypyoshka (pita sandwich). Just before biting into it, a man jumped out from behind the bushes I was sitting near, and tore the pita right out of my hands! He didn't just eat it. He inhaled it! The lady who was selling the pitas started hitting the guy! I yelled out to stop hitting. I saw how hungry the man was and offered to pay for him as well as buy another one for myself. There were a lot of hungry people around me. Most of them stole. But what else could they do? What could be worse than hunger?

I was in the market one day when I saw the Tajiks hitting two Jewish people. They were harassing two brothers. I got in between and grabbed one of Tajiks' hand not to hit the brothers. I was strong then from working in the woods in Siberia. As soon as the two brothers saw me helping, they immediately started to fight off the Tajiks. After some fighting, the Tajiks ran away.

The next day, the commandant from the police called me into the police station. I was curious to know if it had anything to do with the fight, but I was questioned about the amount of money I had. "From what was I making a living?" I told them "When I left Poland, I took nice suits with me, and sold them all." I told them to give me a job! I wanted a job so I can go to work! So I was given one, at a canning factory, which canned fish and the like. My job was to sterilize the cans. I was happy that at least I had a job. I used to bring in the cans with a small cart, and then heat up the cans to the right temperature for sterilization. There were all kinds of cans.

I was lucky enough again to be working with lots of women around me, and only two men! There were about 30 women. The cans went to the army. There was this one nice girl named Anichka. I went out with her a lot. She was a very beautiful girl. We would go for walks by Fergansky Canal. This canal gave water for all the fields.

Anichka had a mother, and a younger sister. Their father and the older brother were in the army. He was bringing food for the younger sister who was working in a restaurant. Anichka wanted to go see her father, and she had a ticket and a pass to go to Dzhambul because her father was in the KGB. She went all the time to the train, but they would never let her on. The military headquarters was stationed there. The conductor told her that there was no place on the train for her. So she would turn around and go back to work. She told me about it, and I told her to wait one week and I'll go with her to Dzhambul. I was still working at the canning factory, and at the same time, was preparing myself to make the journey with her.

We were supposed to start in Tashkent. I took with me a couple of kilos of butter and apricots to sell. While I was there, I was going to buy things that were cheaper there than where I was now. I knew that clothes were also cheaper there, so I spent 3000 rubles in Kanibadam buying stuff and in Tashkent. I was able to sell everything and made 12,000 rubles.

I went with Anichka who could board the train, and told her that she was the one with the ticket, not I. I approached the conductor and without saying a word, I slipped him 300 rubles. With that, I opened wide the doors, and allowed both of us to seat ourselves on the train. As we entered the train, we noticed that the coach section was completely empty! Why had Anichka been told that they were full all the time? Seeing all the empty seats, Anichka said in Russian, "My God! They're selling Russia!"

I went to give my valise into the baggage department, which contained mostly stuff I was going to sell in Dzhambul. I also had a carry-on. So now we were just waiting for the train to go. At the same time, a young Jewish boy walked by and started asking me in Yiddish, "From where comes a Jew?" I told him I came from Poland. He told me he was also from Poland, heading for Dzhambul. He told me that if I had something good to sell, he'd be interested because he was doing the same thing, so he left me with his address. He said he was going to the same places to buy and sell, and if I were interested, he would give me the names and addresses of these places. They were very nice people, he added. So I accepted the address and he explained the directions to me. We arrived at Dzhambul in the morning and I ended up going to that address that was given to me while Anichka went to her father.

It was now December 1943, a few days before New Years, and it wasn't as warm as in Tashkent. In December you need a warm jacket. I decided to take a look around the city. It was a very poor city, which made a bad impression on me. I didn't stay there for long, as I just went there to see the people that I was told to meet. I found the address and took with me samples of suits. A Jewish woman greeted me at the door that had a mezuzah. She had a small child who held her hand, and immediately invited me in and offered me a cup of tea and bread and butter. She even had sugar for the tea. She asked me if I wanted more and I told her I was fine.

At that moment a man walked in the room and said hello to me in Yiddish with some German mixed in. We had a pleasant conversation, which then turned into business talk. He asked about my goods and prices. I told him that what I had on me was worth 22,000 rubles. He started bargaining with me, and we went down a thousand rubles and that was the price we agreed upon. He told me if I were to bring the goods then he would pay me right away. I was traveling with a wagon and horse. The city was very spread apart, so it was quite a ways for me to go back to Kazakhstan to get the goods.

I made it back eventually, and arrived back at these people's home. I dumped all the goods on their table and marked down how much there was and how much it was going to cost. Just as that happened, a policeman barged into the house and saw all the goods spread out on the table. He started asking, "What is this, a store?" The woman with the child started to get hysterical. "Oy!" She screamed, making a commotion trying to distract the police officer. The officer then asked me, "Are these your goods?" Not knowing what to do, I told him they weren't. At the same time, the other people were telling the policeman that I was their cousin and I was visiting from out of town. The officer then ordered me to pack up all the goods into the valise, and that I was under arrest. He then grabbed the full valise and left. I was left with nothing at that point. No money and no goods.

The Jewish mother was still screaming not to arrest me, and swearing that I was the cousin. She told me that I should run away and go back where I came from. So I left the house, and started my way to meet up with Anichka, when I started thinking about the situation that just happened. "Why was it that the policeman arrived at the house just at the same time that I had all my goods laid out? And why was the woman screaming so hysterically telling me to run away?" It was too much of a coincidence. I was had!

It was about that time, that Anichka found me walking around, and I told her everything that happened to me. I told her that I was going to go back to try to retrieve my goods. This time I brought a knife with me. I always heard stories of people getting robbed at night, and the thieves would strip a person down naked at knife point, but I wasn't scared.

It was late at night when I returned and I have to admit that the area I was in was a bit scary since at night it was practically a ghost town. I was alone as I left Anichka behind, but figured I was already robbed, so if I did get robbed, what had I got to lose?

When I arrived at the house, I decided to look through the window first and what I saw astonished me! I saw them all splitting up my goods! There were four people all together, three men, and a woman with a child. I was so angry at this sight that I marched to the front door and with my leg, kicked the door open so hard that the house could have fallen down. I said right away: "So you're all splitting up my goods between yourselves?" One person spoke up, "Ok, we're going to settle with you." They offered me just 3,000 rubles for everything. Then I was told that if I wasn't going to leave right away, they were going to kill me. So I promised them that I would go back; but I didn't. Then they said "You're not the first one and you're not going to be the last one." I responded by saying, "The first one I'm not, but the last one I'm not going to be either."

Instead of going back to where I came from, I met up with a man from the army, whom Anichka had set me up with and who was working at the front. He was wounded with crutches, and I gave him 2,000 rubles and told him the whole story. He had another friend who was willing to come with us so the three of us rented a horse and a wagon and we started off back to the thieves. We later found out that somebody told the thieves right away that we were coming, because when we got to our destination, everybody was hiding. They knew something was going down. I got to the house, knocked on the door, and the woman with child opened the door. It didn't look as if anyone else was home. She didn't want to let me in, so one the soldiers kicked open the door which made the woman scream that we were hitting her, which was not true. All four men where in fact home, heard this, and came out and started swinging at us. One guy took out an axe and started for me, but before he got to me, the injured soldier took one of his wooden crutches and hit the guy over his head. With him a little dazed, the soldier grabbed the axe out of his hands. The other three guys got scared of us having the axe, and offered us another 3000 rubles! I knew that we had to accept their word because the final train that goes from Dzhambul to Tashkent leaves tomorrow morning at 9:00am. So I told the two soldiers when I'm going to be heading to the train, that they should report the thieves to the police. I gave them another 1,000 for their help wished them a goodbye and went to pick up Anichka and say goodbye to her father.

When we got back to Kanibadam, Anichka told me that they had arrested her father. Speaking of fathers, my father was wondering where I had been. He was getting worried. When I told him the story of what happened to me, he couldn't believe it, especially the fact that they were Jewish people. I started working again in the canning factory and life went back to normal.

January 1943

We started to hear good news from the front that they had chased most of the Germans back. Poland was another story. Polish Jews were taken to concentration camps, and the rest were missing. We still couldn't believe it, but the stories were repeated by soldiers whom we met. The Poles and the Ukrainians were helping out the Germans, more than the Germans themselves.

By the end of the month, we received information that we should voluntarily go to the Russian police station to change our passports from Polish to Russian ones and if we refuse, we could be subjected to jail. We were afraid, so instead of going to jail, we decided to accept the Russian citizenship. We were now considered second-class citizens because of this. In a few days, they told us to go to work in a camp. This included myself, and Daniel Baumgart, and Itzik Levin from our hometown of Bodsanov along with a few more friends, which included two brothers named Schlesinger and one Moshe Povecheski and another friend whose name escapes me. Others were from Kanibadam and the remaining 40 were Russian Tajiks.

The next day, we packed whatever clothing we had, along with a sack of dried apricots. We said goodbye to everybody including my brother Menacher and my father. We were going to the province of Chelyabinsk by freight train. We found a place to sleep while the train rolled from city to city. The next day at 10:00 am, we came to Bakalstroy, which is 12 km past Chelyabinsk. Over there, we found all kinds of people; people from south of Moscow who lived near the Volga river. In Yiddish we called them Deutchen by the Volga. In Russian it's Nynsee Povoljya. Germans who lived near the Volga River. The leader's name was Agues. There was Lenin, Stalin, Marx and Agues. When the war started with the Germans, the Russians took all the Germans near the Volga and they sent them all to Bakalstroy to cut timber. They were also building new factories for ammunition.

I met a false Deutchen, and asked him "What is the news?" He told me, "I don't know, because they sent me out. I am a Russian citizen, because if the Germans were to take over Moscow, they would surrender to the German army." He continued, "So, the government did a good thing, by sending them out deep into the woods. The Germans can't be trusted. They were all with Hitler." Of 300,000 thousand Germans, there were 100,000 left. Even with that amount, there were too many left. Where I was working, we had the false Deutchen who were worse than the S.S.

We were eating lunch in the cafeteria, when I heard an announcements saying that they were going to send people to work on the railroads. Some of the tracks were destroyed and they were asking people to fix them. After some discussion, they took me and seven others, and 20,000 Tajiks to register to work. The Tajiks were never sent into the army as they weren't foot soldiers. There were other kinds of Russians there, one being our manager. We took food with us, and prepared to go the next morning. We went to sleep, and the night was very cold as we didn't have anything to cover ourselves with. We didn't have anything to heat the shelter either. It was so cold that everybody kept running for the bathrooms at night. (Cold weather makes the bowels quite active!)

In the morning we had breakfast, and we were ready to go. All together there were seven Jews: Itzik Levin, Daniel Baumgart, the two brothers, Moshe Levkovitch, Moshe Chochonofski, and myself. We all came to Chelyabinsk where we were each supposed to get on a car from the train. Itzik and I had a sack with us that contained apricots, which we immediately went to the markets to sell. We were so busy with selling them that people were standing in line to buy them. It didn't take long until we sold everything. We made 80,000 rubles. I took Itzik Levin's apricots to sell as well and another line started. In the middle of selling though two police officers came. They told me to pack everything and asked me where I got the apricots. So I told them, "I come from Kanibadam, and I worked in kolchoz and they paid me with apricots, not with money."

They realized that they couldn't do anything to me because the apricots were paid by work so I took out a handful of apricots and gave one handful to one officer and the other to the other officer. We told them to go and sell the rest. I then gave 50,000 rubles to Itzik. We then went back to the train station in time to catch the train.

We went to Valtooz in Siberia. The minute we got there, they put us to work right away. The Germans had bombarded all the rails and we seven Jews were putting all the railing together.

It was now the end of January and it was very cold. We weren't used to such a cold. We weren't even dressed properly for the weather and because of that, we didn't feel like going out of the wagon. In the wagon we had a little oven burning with coal to cook our food. We wanted permission to put a window inside the wagon. We went with a special wagon that went on the rails and had a special attachment that could pick up all the railings. We unloaded this in the wagon, and then used the attachment to pick up the rail. The seven of us were doing this, putting everything together and unloading the stuff in the wagon, but the Tajiks, didn't do a thing. They were sitting down and warming themselves by the ovens. This went on for two weeks. After work we went to the train station to hear the news of what was going on in Europe. What kind of news we could we get from the front? We received even better news than we had hoped for. The Germans were being pushed back from the front.

A lot of the mothers were waiting at the station for their daughters and sons to come back from the army. The mothers were waiting for their daughters who came to visit because they were going to college in Chelyabinsk. They would see us young men, and with their daughters shortly to arrive, they would come up to us and say, "Wait don't go away. Wait till you see what kind of beautiful daughters we have!" Trying to set us up.

We had nothing to do but waiting for the train so we decided to let them introduce us because they were Jewish mothers and spoke Yiddish. There were beautiful girls everywhere. Natural beauties. No make-up, the way I prefer it. In a time like this, who could think of girls? I was working so hard it wasn't even in my head to think about girls.

Then we heard information about a Polish army organized by Moscow. The name of the place was Derbova. The name of the army was Bodvonda Varshavskaya. We decided to call ourselves the "Lucky 7" and decided to go privately into the Polish army. We were still considered second-class citizens but at least we were citizens. So we went to the Russian commissary, received permission, and went back to our train to the manager in charge to show them the papers that showed that we wanted to volunteer for the Polish army. It was a hard decision to make, but it was better than going back to the Tajiks who were terribly lazy. Better to go into the army than to work with them.

We left the same day, and by the next day we arrived at the camp where they took all seven of us in the "Sanitary Batallion." I was given a new uniform, and was told to wash up and clean up. Now I wasn't worried any more; I had a steady job. I had a bed to sleep in, food to eat, and a roof over my head. The next day, the marching started. Everyday we would march for 30 kilometers. They also started to teach me how to give help to the wounded soldiers, and how to shoot a rifle. We were new recruits and they had to teach us everything. It was very hard in the beginning but we got used to it. Little by little we got better and better. They built a field hospital in the forest, which took 20 minutes to erect. There were eight tables for the operations, but we didn't have electricity. We had kerosene lamps and a machine like a generator that produced electrical power.

Days went by and we were improving until one day they brought in a lot of wounded for operations. They brought one soldier who accidentally shot himself in the stomach. For the first time in my life did I see what I saw then. They had to cut into his stomach to remove the bullet. You could see all his intestines with holes. But that's the way it was. They gave us tranquilizers to help us calm down after that incident. That day left a bad impression on me and for the following days I couldn't eat or sleep. My doctor told me that you get used to it. It was true. As time went on I became immune to all the blood. My job was to help the doctors in the room, and the patients. My friends were just standing there holding the lamps. One of them holding the lamps couldn't take it anymore and fainted. Most people were so disgusted that they were willing to go to the front rather than to stay in the hospital. For me, it was better like this than being in the front. Here it wasn't comfortable but it was safer.

February 1943

I heard good news again from Stalingrad that the Germans had big losses, and that they were surrounded. After hearing such news, we were happier. Our spirits lifted. We were now preparing to go to the front with our division. Our unit was called up to meet in a big field which wasn't far from our station. There was a lot of snow because it was February. The soldiers were standing in a semi circle in the field with loud speakers. "There stand deserters among us," The General said. "One is a Pole and one is a Jew, and we captured them." He continued, "They deserted the army." They then gave the order to shoot them for being traitors!

The doctor stood with the general and was talking to the whole division. "Who ever is going to desert the battalion is going to get the same punishment as these two!" They were showing an example to everyone as to what would happen if they deserted the division. I thought to myself, "Perhaps it wasn't their fault but the General wanted to make an example of them." This was the second division. His name was Bombrovski. He and the doctor came with an ambulance. The two traitors were standing there, and the officer gave the order to shoot them, both of them. They were tied up and blind folded. There was a priest present who asked the Polish boy something which I could not hear. Then he went to the Jewish boy to ask him something too and he started crying and pleaded. "I have a wife in Tashkent and two children! I didn't do anything, I don't know why they want to shoot me!"

They couldn't get a rabbi, and they were both standing in front facing the soldiers, tied against poles. The captain gave the order to shoot! There were five soldiers and each fired one bullet, one to the Jew and one the Pole. After they shot them, the doctor and I went to them to check if they were still alive or dead. We arrived first at the Pole, who was dead on the spot, but then we came to the Jewish boy, and to my surprise he was alive! His pulse was still going. I was so happy that they were going to save him. You see, normally when someone is ordered to die, and after being shot they are still alive, they are bound to save that person's life. It's a law in the army, like they just had escaped death. But to my horror, the captain rounded up the same five soldiers, and gave the order to fire again! They did this to set an example. When it was all over, the doctor declared him dead.

In the whole world, they accept the law of allowing the person to live after they've been shot, or hanged. When you survive something like this, they give you your life, but here, the guy was alive, and again they put five more bullets into his body. I wasn't feeling good. I couldn't sleep a whole night. I couldn't eat. I was very upset. I just kept thinking about the Jewish boy begging, pleading to the priest, "I'm not guilty, it's not my fault. I couldn't come on time, I got lost!" He was crying with bitter tears. Something as foolish as arriving at camp 15 minute too late wasn't reason enough to shoot somebody. Unfortunately, he was an example for the rest of the soldiers. We went back to our posts where we were told that we had to be prepared to fight against the Germans. We heard more news from the Leningrad and Moscow fronts that the Germans had been beaten up good.

The time came for us to go closer to the front. They gave us a place for our division about 12 km from the front. Not far from Smolensk.

March 1943

It was still winter but it was getting a little warmer as it was March and the sun was shining higher in the sky. We set up our hospital in the forest near Smolensk. We made polatkas (frames for the tents) and it didn't take long before wounded soldiers arrived. When the German soldiers ran away they left behind mines. The soldiers would walk in the fields and land on a mine. Soldiers were told to pick up any unusual artifacts on the ground. One-day though, one soldier ran off from the line, grabbed a pail off the ground, and the ground beneath him blew up. But not just one mine; 40 others blew up along with it. It must have set off a chain reaction. The mines would blow up half a meter of ground around it, and was near the hospital.

There were many wounded and they were all rushed to the hospital. It was horrible to see all those people. We weren't even on the front and because of this one guy half of us got blown up! So all we could do at that moment was to start working on them. A lot of them had lost a foot or a hand. Some had their feet dangling, or their heads hanging like spaghetti mixed with blood. All the eight operating tables were occupied with the wounded. They gave them morphine right away to alleviate their pain. It was very hard to clean up afterwards because we didn't have any water. They gave us margensoofka (a special cleaning solution). Most patients couldn't take the solution as it would burn them. Two patients who needed the solution, started to scream as I applied it to their skin. They brought in maybe 50 wounded so now we were all working on them, doctors and the nurses. The doctors showed me how. They sent me and another boy to help prepare the wounded for the doctors to operate on. This went on the entire night as we didn't have anyone to replace us. No second shift. It was us or nothing. For 20 hours we worked. We didn't even have time to eat.

I had a Polish friend named Matzevitch. He liked me very much. We ate from the same plate, and even slept near each other like brothers. He and I together worked on eight anesthetics that we gave to the patients. It affected us and knocked us out. We made sure not to go to sleep until we knew that all the wounded were helped. The doctors and nurses as well worked very late into the night.

The next day we had to pack and move camp even further. We had to take everything apart and put it on the chingeroofka (machine to move large and heavy objects) and were told to go closer to the Polish border. Getting closer we were hearing all kind of stories about the Germans and what they had done to the families, the brothers, the sisters. We couldn't believe what we were hearing.

At one point we weren't far from a concentration camp. The Polish people were digging holes, big holes, and dumping thousands of women, men, and small children into them. They would shoot them and they would fall into the hole. Even those that survived fell into the hole. Being weak and depressed they had nothing to live for. Then they would cover the hole with soil. The soil would continue to move for four days because of those people who were buried alive. It would move until they finally died. I couldn't believe such a thing.

The world was quiet.

Without pity.

Who would do such a thing!

The world should have done the same to the Germans as they did to those people. Bury them alive! Such innocent people died, women, children.

Where I was sleeping there was a Ukrainian. I told her that I was Jewish. She said she didn't believe it with my uniform and the hat, which made me unrecognizable as a Jew. She couldn't believe that I wasn't afraid. There were Jewish doctors who wouldn't dare say that they were Jewish. This was on October 1943.

We were now closer to Lublin and I am not sure of the month, but I remember that all the Poles were so happy. We had a party, with drinks and food, but I didn't feel like drinking. Then I said to myself, "Where are the 60,000 Jews?" Then I went to the Maidanek camp. People who passed me by asked in Hebrew if I was Jew. But I didn't understand Hebrew. Since I didn't understand they automatically assumed that I wasn't Jewish. In fact nobody answered. They were all afraid. When I came close to the Maidanek camp, I didn't find one person there. The ones who did survive were afraid of the Poles. They were afraid more of the Poles than the Germans. Even the Polish partisans used to shoot at the Jewish partisans. The Jewish partisans used to kill the bad Germans or Poles as well. They shouldn't have done it, but you see, the Polish partisans used to shoot at the Jewish partisans without pity. They didn't care. They used to fight among themselves. They were also like murderers of their own people.

Everything that I saw and was told, I wrote down and sent to my father and all my friends in Russia. They couldn't believe what I writing, that such a thing could happen. They thought this was all Russian propaganda. They heard stories before I sent the letter that they didn't believe, but after receiving my letter which confirmed everything they heard they had to believe it. When they got my letter in Kanibadam, they saw that it was true. They were crying as they were reading my letter. They lost their hope of seeing their families and loved ones.

Again we started preparing for the second front, and it was going very slow. I kept thinking that if they would have opened the front a little earlier, they could have saved 200,000 Jews. Then the Canadian, British, Australian and American armies would have come six months earlier. But the Germans killed till the end. The first front line was 20 km and the second 15 km away. Wounded people kept coming in. We prepared the wounded for the operations. The operations were very major. One of those was wounded in the leg by a machine gun. I found out it was Daniel Baumgart who was wounded. When he was brought to this hospital, he asked for me since I was his best friend.

He started to call for me so I approached him and carefully took him to the operating table for the operation. There were more wounded around us, so I appealed to a female surgeon for help. She was a very good doctor. She was a like a mother to me, and she liked me in much the same fashion. Her name was Captain Magikofska. She looked at his leg, turned to me and said "His leg has to be amputated right away." I told her that Daniel was my first cousin, and pleaded with her not to remove his leg, to try to save it somehow. I showed her where the bullet was and saw a small hole. When she spoke about amputation again, I told her that I was not a doctor, but just by watching the doctors all those times, I had some experience. To amputate a leg takes about 30 minutes. There were so many wounded that speed was a factor in trying to save as many people as possible. I then told the doctor that there might be hope not to amputate his leg that maybe we can save it. She saw that I had a little bit of experience, so she asked me to prepare all the surgery equipment. She and the nurses started to work, and instead of amputating, they started to close up the wounds and fix the damaged veins to stop the bleeding.

It took them more than an hour, and usually they don't keep people longer than 30 minutes on the table. One vein was bleeding very hard, and it was hard to find where it was coming from, but the surgeon eventually found it and stopped the bleeding. She saved him for me, and I was so happy that I kissed her! She had a very good heart. She was very nervous to do the operation, but she did it. After the operation, she went out to smoke a cigarette to calm down. She was very worried about the wounded soldiers. My major, Major Kaldunski taught me how to be cool and strong with the patients. There was once a wounded soldier who died on the table, but we have to go on to save others. The major was the best surgeon. He was a vegetarian, and had a caterer who cooked special food for him. He loved working together with me. He was very fast, and taught other doctors when he had the time, and when I had time, I would sew uniforms, and pants for the officers since I was a specialist.

The officers were very happy with my job, and gave me good presents like salami, and I called the entire staff and we would drink and eat together. Everybody around me knew that I was Jewish, as I wasn't ashamed of my nationality. I was proud to be a Jew. When I had time, I learned how to dance with other men and women, and if someone would say a bad word to me, others were ready to defend me.

There were times when we were camped near the Vistula river near Pulav; since we didn't have much work nobody attacked us. We were prepared and we were just sitting on the grass. There were several dozen soldiers around who just happened to be all women. A Russian soldier approached a pretty girl near me, and said to her out loud in Russian "Tac Younas nividads nyadnavoy dibraya" which meant, "Between both our divisions, you can't find one Jewish soldier!" He continued on, "All the Jews are in middle Asia and Tashkent." This of course, was an anti-Semitic remark. Then the girl, started winking, hinting to her friend not to talk so loud. He didn't understand why she was winking. Did she want him or something? He finally caught on, and stopped talking when he understood. I then thought of saying something to him, that I am Jewish but then decided better not. Hitler and all his sympathizers killed almost all the Jews, so I decided to keep quiet. The Ukrainian people were also worse than the Germans for the same reason as the Poles. The male soldier talking to the female soldier was a surgeon and Ukrainian. He didn't really care if he was talking out loud about Jews, since he wasn't the only one doing this.

October 1943

It didn't take long and we got the order to pack up the hospital, and to move closer to Warsaw. The days were now shorter with colder nights. We were all on a truck heading towards our destination and with the wind blowing; we didn't have anything to cover ourselves with. I covered myself with the scarf I was wearing. While I was covering myself, a beautiful young girl slowly inched her way towards me to seek warmth from my body. The closer she got, the warmer I got! I started to kiss her, and we both got hot. The truck was bouncing, and we were bouncing too! Even with our lives in danger, and watching Katyusha rockets fly by overhead, we got very intimate. She was only 18 years old, and I was 23. These were the best years to live. This was all happening at night and we traveled till the morning.

We were not far from Praga in Warsaw. I don't remember the name of the place, but we got off the truck, started unpacking and put the hospital back together again. We almost immediately started to take in the wounded. There weren't too many wounded because there wasn't any fighting going on, just the wounded that were lying there. That night we saw that Warsaw was engulfed in flames. There was this Polish organization, the Okovtses; they were partisans in the field, and attacked Warsaw. Then we saw American airplanes that were throwing food for the people. Nobody helped the Okovtses with ammunition and because Russia didn't want to help them, they were enemies of Russia.

Like the Americans and Elifs (British military), they were supposed to start the second front (with Eisenhower) but before anything happened, the army Krayova (another organization) attacked. They didn't have a chance to take Warsaw. Then fighting began and that's when I saw at night, Warsaw in flames. The Germans and the Ukrainians, were fighting against the Okovtses. They were supposed to show that Russia gives them help. They sent our division, the second division to help them on the other side where the river was. It wasn't easy to get there because the Germans were very well equipped and we had a lot of losses

A lot of wounded stopped coming at one point as the whole hospital was full. All of the medical staff started to work, and we were working 24 hours day and night. There was nobody to replace us. Not the doctors, not the nurses, nor the orderlies. There was nobody to replace us. I didn't have anybody to help me so I would pick up and take down the wounded onto the table myself, and to prepare him or her for the operation. There were many wounded people. It was scary to look at them, but we had to save them. One nurse took off the bandages from a soldier's face, and fainted. Instead of a face, she saw a skeleton. No face, no eyes, no nose and the mouth was also deformed, just the bottom lip was intact. Even the tongue was crushed into many pieces. I approached him and washed him with Margensoofka. Nobody wanted to do this job so I did it. When I was done washing him, they sewed up his bottom lip and tongue, but the eyes, they couldn't save. His face would remain a skeleton. His head was strong, nothing happened to his head or body. He would survive with his tongue and mouth intact. He would also be able to eat.

His condition must have happened from a mine. There were mines that blow up half a meter from the earth. We were all working very hard for the wounded, and there was this one wounded that I wanted to remove from the table. I didn't have any help, so I was going to do it myself as I've done before in the past. He was very heavy, and just had surgery. I began to pick him up with my hands, and as I was about to lift him, my fingers punctured his skin and dug right into his lungs. The doctor forgot to sew him up because he was so tired. I ran as fast as I could to the major, and showed him what happened. With that the major ordered the doctor to bed and sleep. The doctor pleaded "There were so many wounded, how can I go to sleep?" But an order is an order, and he turned around to go to bed. Myself with my friend Maxsevitch, were working until all the wounded were operated on, which was about 48 hours. I lost 15 kilos during that time, and by not sleeping.

There was another wounded person whose leg and hand were amputated, and he fainted after learning that. It was arranged that the wounded should be brought to the hospital with their body parts, because what happens is that when the soldier is brought in, their leg is buried already. The soldier then said to me that "his toes were cold"which couldn't be because he had no leg, it was just the medication talking. I covered him up.

We were camped near Russia a long time, and took the opportunity to go to Praga and to Rajinska Street. I wanted to go to the area where the Germans were shooting near Warsaw with artillery. We ran away to hide behind a gate. We came back, barely with our lives to the station; our major was very angry with us because we had wandered off on our own and didn't report ourselves. Then a surgeon from the "Police Bureau" called all us soldiers together to get us to sign a document that stated that 10,000 Polish officers were shot in the Katyn Forest by the Germans. Everybody signed except for one Polish surgeon who said, "How could I sign? I was there when it happened. It was the Russians that shot them, not the Germans!" The high-ranking officers heard this, and the next morning when I woke up, I noticed that that man was gone! He was no longer sleeping where he normally sleeps. They must have done something to him to keep his mouth shut. In the army it was a well-known fact that if you see something, you're never supposed to talk about it. The rest of the soldiers already knew at that point what happened to him. Everybody was afraid to talk to one another. Nobody knew who gave the man away to the KBG because they were all afraid to talk.

The Polish army Krayova also lost to the Germans. If the Russians wanted they would have come to help them and beat the Germans but they didn't want to, so both divisions lost to the Germans. Russia didn't want the Okovtses to take Warsaw because they would make their own government, which really wasn't a government. The Russian's already prepared to make an attack on the Germans to take back Warsaw. A female surgeon then called the whole division together to tell us that Ella Orangeburg who was a reporter said that the Germans warned the Russians of an attack. That the soldiers should do the same thing to the Germans what they did to all their people. But who was she, just a reporter? Nobody would listen to her. In two hours they called us again together and turned everything around and told us that they had a report from the "Police Bureau" that said, whoever would shoot a German is going to get reprimanded. In addition those who rape a German or shoot a small child will be punished just the same. It shouldn't make a difference no matter whom we bring in wounded to the hospital. We help them, not shoot them. Those who did not heed the warning will get punished.

January 1944

After a few months, the Russian army made an offensive attack, they didn't go directly to Warsaw, but rather they surrounded it on both sides. This was already at the end of January 1944 near the Vistula, which was frozen. A bridge was built in order to get across, by us and the Polish divisions who helped. The Germans got scared and ran back from where they came from. But there were places where we put our offensive. We still had some from our own divisions. We were fighting till the last minute, until the last drop of blood. We set up our hospital and almost immediately we were bringing in the wounded. There were eight tables prepared for the operations. Everybody got busy, and then they started to bring in the wounded Germans. The first German that came to me made my heart bleed for having to help someone who killed my people and small children, and I have to save him. I didn't put him right away on the table to operate. I left him till the end. When I finally had him on the table, I spoke to him in German. As we were talking, a Russian soldier heard us and realized the man was German, and wanted to get up and kill the German but he was tied up and couldn't move. He did manage to stand up, but before he was able to undo the bandages, he was sedated by the other doctors.

My friend Maxsevitch and I were working very hard since there weren't that many medics to replace us. Those who did ran away! They couldn't take the sight of such heavy wounded. I got used to it because I had to. The only bad thing was working too many hours. The food we got was the best food, but when you work so may hours you have no appetite. All you do is work and sleep. And even when you had the chance to go to sleep you could only manage to get an hour or two. Even once we fell asleep we were woken up about two hours later. I was lucky enough a have a warm blanket. Almost always I would have someone with me under the blankets, and usually it was a girl! They were nurses, and when you're tired, sex is that last thing on your mind. We were all so tired! Also from all the operations that we did, we smelled of anesthetic which was not a nice smell.

A nurse then came running to me asking me to help her. What had happened is that during the operation, one of the wounded swallowed his tongue, and his teeth were clenched together. I ran right away with her, and with my strong hands I was able to tear open his mouth, and with a special medical device I was able to get his tongue out. He couldn't even breathe with his tongue down his throat, and now with it out, he gasped for air, and was able to breathe better. As he breathed, a white discharge came out of his mouth. The nurse was so happy that I was able to help her.

That same day, we were told to pack up everything because we were going farther. I wasn't far from Bodsanov where I was born. We were in Vlotslavic which was 40 km from Bodsanov. We didn't stop, but we were going in the same direction from Poznan. We turned right at one point, until we got to Coburg, Germany.