Tag #138686 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

We stayed in a kolkhoz [11] and could hear the grenades exploding around the kolkhoz, but in the building, as well. How could we save ourselves? If they captured us or we got involved in firing, they would surely have slaughtered us. In the kolkhoz there were these 100 meters long, 2 meters high large dunghills. They didn’t take it out for several years, because it was occupied and they just stacked it up. One of our guards had an idea, and told us: ‘You know what? Each of you should dig a hole in this dunghill. And when the attacks will come, you will just hide in there.’ Many died in the kolkhoz, but none of us. It seems it stopped the bullets, it functioned as a shelter, and thus we managed to escape. On the next day the Russians came. Then I had my first big, big disappointment, when one of us, who knew a little Russian, because he was from Maramarossziget [Editor’s note: Amongst the heterogeneous population of Maramaros there lived Ruthenians, as well, and their language is very close to Ukrainian]. He went to one of the Russians – we didn’t know the ranks then – and told him we were not Hungarians, but Jews. He got two such slaps in the face... Then we learnt how to swear in Russian and told him to go and screw himself. They surrounded us and the Hungarian soldiers and rounded us up. There were almost 10,000 prisoners. It was August 1944, we were out on the field, we were surrounded by Russian guards with dogs. On that night, everyone of us heard some wailing. The Hungarian soldiers killed I don't know how many officers of their own because the way they treated us on the front. In the morning we saw the bodies: the Russians came, or who did this? In deed, who did it? Now, could you find the criminal among 10,000 people? They took us right away to Sztri [Stry]. We spent there some 3 or 4 weeks. The daily meal was 250 grams of biscuits. It was quite enough, because 250 grams of biscuit was equivalent to 1 kg of bread. We dipped it in water or tea, and ate it like this. Then they took us to Stalino [Donetsk, in today's Ukraine]. Thus the 4 years of Russian captivity began.