Tag #136468 - Interview #77987 (ladislav porjes)

At the dawn of the fourth day of our escape, during the three preceding nights we could have walked at the most several dozen kilometers, we were alarmed in our thistly hiding place by a warning shout “Hands up, or I’ll shoot!” Luckily our fright didn’t last long, because we immediately realized that the command wasn’t given in German, but in for us so sweet-sounding Russian. We stood, ragged and pitiful, face to face with two Soviet spies. While they were aiming their machine guns at us, they were also unbelievingly and mainly suspiciously staring at our hitherto unfamiliar striped “uniforms.” Though both Russians hadn’t yet seen a “Häftling,” they did have their experiences with SS scoundrels, disguised in all manner of things from farmer’s shirts to prison uniforms. That’s also why they at first didn’t believe our clothing, nor our Russian and painstaking accents, gained more from fellow Soviet prisoners in the camp than from the last two years of academic high school. They even hesitated when they saw the numbers tattooed on our forearms, and searched for another compulsory SS blood type tattoo, even under our arms. Only when they didn’t find them, and felt our emaciated skeletons, did they hang their machine guns on their shoulders, made a fire and offered us bread with speck and rolled ham from an opened can.